HOW   TO   TELL   A    STORY 


AND    OTHER    ESSAYS 


BY 


MARK    TWAIN 


NEW    YORK   AND   LONDON 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

1898 


BY  MARK  TWAIN. 


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CONTENTS 


PAGE 

How  TO  TELL  A  STORY 3 

IN  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 15 

FENIMORE  COOPER'S  LITERARY  OFFENCES  ....  93 

TRAVELLING  WITH  A  REFORMER 119 

PRIVATE  HISTORY  OF  THE  "JUMPING  FROG"  STORY  149 

MENTAL  TELEGRAPHY  AGAIN 167 

WHAT  PAUL  BOURGET  THINKS  OF  Us 181 

A  LITTLE  NOTE  TO  M.  PAUL  BOURGET 213 


HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 


NOTE 

"  How  to  Tell  a  Story  "  originally  appeared  in  The  Youth's 
Companion;  "In  Defence  of  Harriet  Shelley,"  "  Fenimore 
Cooper's  Literary  Offences,"  "What  Paul  Bourget  Thinks 
of  Us,"  and  'The  Private  History  of  the  'Jumping  Frog' 
Story,"  in  the  North  American  Review ;  "  Travelling  with  a 
Reformer,"  in  the  Cosmopolitan  Magazine;  and  "Mental 
Telegraphy  Again,"  in  Harper  s  Magazine.  "  A  Little  Note 
to  Paul  Bourget "  has  not  before  appeared  in  print  in  this 
country. 


HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 


The  Humorous  Story  an  American  Development.—  Its 
Difference  from  Comic  and  Witty  Stories. 

I  DO  not  claim  that  I  can  tell  a  story  as  it 
ought  to  be  told.  I  only  claim  to  know  how 
a  story  ought  to  be  told,  for  I  have  been  al 
most  daily  in  the  company  of  the  most  expert 
story-tellers  for  many  years. 

There  are  several  kinds  of  stories,  but  only 
one  difficult  kind  —  the  humorous.  I  will  talk 
mainly  about  that  one.  The  humorous  story 
is  American,  the  comic  story  is  English^the 
witty  story  isJFrencrh  The  "humorous  story 
depends  for  its  effect  upon  thfTmanner~oi  the 
telling;  the  comic  story  andjt 
upon  ihejng£Acr. 

The  humorous  story  may  be  spun  out  to 
great  length,  and  may  wander  around  as  much 
as  it  pleases,  and  arrive  nowhere  in  partic 
ular;  but  the  comic  and  witty  stories  must 
be  brief  and  end  with  a  point.  The  humor- 


4  HOW  TO   TELL   A   STORY 

ous   story  bubbles   gently  along,  the   others 
burst. 

The  humorous  story  is  strictly  a  work  of 
art — high  and  delicate  art— and  only  an  artist 
can  tell  it  ;  but  no  art  is  necessary  in  telling 
the  comic  and  the  witty  story ;  anybody  cai, 
do  it.  The  art  of  telling  a  humorous  story — 
understand,  I  mean  by  word  of|  mouth,  not 
print  —  was  created  in  America,'  and  has  re 
mained  at  home. 

The  humorous  story  is  told  gravely ;  the 
teller  does  his  best  to  conceal  the  fact  that  he 
even  dimly  suspects  that  there  is  anything 
funny  about  it ;  but  the  teller  of  the  comic 
story  tells  you  beforehand  that  it  is  one  of  the 
funniest  things  he  has°ever  heard,  then  tells  it 
with  eager  delight,  and  is  the  first  person  to 
laugh  when  he  gets  through.  And  sometimes, 
if  he  has  had  good  success,  he  is  so  glad  and 
happy  that  he  will  repeat  the  "  nub  "  of  i 
glance  around  from  face  to  face,  collectin 
plause,  and  then  repeat  it  again.  It  is  a  pa 
thetic  thing  to  see. 

Very  often,  of  course,  the  rambling  and  dis 
jointed  humorous  story  finishes  with  a  nub, 
point,  snapper,  or  whatever  you  like  to  call  it. 
Then  the  listener  must  be  alert,  for  in  many 
cases  the  teller  will  divert  attention  from  that 


HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY  5 

nub  by  dropping  it  in  a  carefully  casual  and 
indifferent  way,  with  the  pretence  that  he  does 
not  know  it  is  a  nub. 

Artemus  Ward  used  that  trick  a  good  deal ; 
then  when  the  belated  audience  presently 
caught  the  joke)  he  would  look  up  with  inno 
cent  surprise,  as  if  wondering  what  they  had 
found  to  laugh  at.  Dan-  Setchell  used  it  be 
fore  him,  Nye  and  Riley  and  others  use  it 
to-day. 

But  the  teller  of  the  comic  story  does  not 
slur  the  nub;  he  shouts  it  at  you — every  time. 
And  when  he  prints  it,  in  England,  France, 
Germany,  and  Italy,  he  italicizes  it,  puts  some 
whooping  exclamation -points  after  it,  and 
sometimes  explains  it  in  a  parenthesis.  All  of 
which  is  very  depressing,  and  makes  one  want 
to  renounce  joking  and  lead  a  better  life. 

Let  me  set  down  an  instance  of  the  comic 
method,  using  an  anecdote  which  has  been 
popular  all  over  the  world  for  twelve  or  fifteen 
hundred  years.  The  teller  tells  it  in  this 
way: 

THE  WOUNDED   SOLDIER 

In  the  course  of  a  certain  battle  a  soldier 
whose  leg  had  been  shot  off  appealed  to  an 
other  soldier  who  was  hurrying  by  to  carry 


6  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

him  to  the  rear,  informing  him  at  the  same 
time  of  the  loss  which  he  had  sustained ; 
whereupon  the  generous  son  of  Mars,  shoul 
dering  the  unfortunate,  proceeded  to  carry  out 
his  desire.  The  bullets  and  cannon-balls  were 
flying  in  all  directions,  and  presently  one  of 
the  latter  took  the  wounded  man's  head  off — 
without,  however,  his  deliverer  being  aware  of 
it.  In  no  long  time  he  was  hailed  by  an  offi 
cer,  who  said : 

"  Where  are  you  going  with  that  carcass?" 
"To  the  rear,  sir — he's  lost  his  leg!" 
"His  leg,  forsooth?"  responded  the  aston 
ished    officer;     "you    mean    his    head,    you 
booby." 

Whereupon  the  soldier  dispossessed  himself 
of  his  burden,  and  stood  looking  down  upon 
it  in  great  perplexity.  At  length  he  said : 

"  It  is  true,  sir,  just  as  you  have  said."     Then 
•-;  after  a  pause  he  added,  "  But  he  TOLD  me  IT 
WAS   HIS   LEG!  !  !  M" 

Here  the  narrator  bursts  into  explosion 
after  explosion  of  thunderous  horse -laughter, 
repeating  that  nub  from  time  to  time  through 
his  gaspings  and  shriekings  and  suffocatings. 

It  takes  only  a  minute  and  a  half  to  tell 
that  in  its  comic-story  form  ;  and  isn't  worth 


HOW   TO    TELL   A    STORY  '/ 

the  telling,  after  all.  Put  into  the  humorous- 
story  form  it  takes  ten  minutes,  and  is  about 
the  funniest  thing  I  have  ever  listened  to — as 
James  Whitcomb  Riley  tells  it. 

He  tells  it  in  the  character  of  a  dull-witted 
old  farmer  who  has  just  heard  it  for  the  first 
time,  thinks  it  is  unspeakably  funny,  and  is 
trying  to  repeat  it  to  a  neighbor.  But  he 
can't  remember  it ;  so  he  gets  all  mixed  up 
and  wanders  helplessly  round  and  round,  put 
ting  in  tedious  details  that  don't  belong  in  the 
tale  and  only  retard  it ;  taking  them  out  con 
scientiously  and  putting  in  others  that  are  just 
as  useless ;  making  minor  mistakes  now  and 
then  and  stopping  to  correct  them  and  ex 
plain  how  he  came  to  make  them  ;  remember 
ing  things  which  he  forgot  to  put  in  in  their 
proper  place  and  going  back  to  put  them  in 
there;  stopping  his  narrative  a  good  while  in 
order  to  try  to  recall  the  name  of  the  soldier 
that  was  hurt,  and  finally  remembering  that 
the  soldier's  name  was  not  mentioned,  and  re 
marking  placidly  that  the  name  is  of  no  real 
importance,  anyway  —  better,  of  course,,  if  one 
knew  it,  but  not  essential,  after  all — and  so  on, 
and  so  on,  and  so  on. 

The  teller  is  innocent  and  happy  and  pleased 
with  himself,  and  has  to  stop  every  little  while 


3  HOW   TO   TEEL   A   STORY 

\ 

to  hold  himself  in  and  keep  from  laughing  out 
right  ;  and  does  hold  in,  but  his  body  quakes 
in  a  jelly-like  way  with  interior  chuckles ;  and 
at  the  end  of  the  ten  minutes  the  audience 
have  laughed  until  they  are  exhausted,  and 
the  tears  are  running  down  their  faces. 

The  simplicity  and  innocence  and  sincerity 
and  unconsciousness  of  the  old  farmer  are  per 
fectly  simulated,  and  the  result  is  a  perform 
ance  which  is  thoroughly  charming  and  de 
licious.  This  is  art — and  fine  and  beautiful, 
and  only  a  master  can  compass  it ;  but  a  ma 
chine  could  teU  the, other  story. 

To  string  incongruities  and  absurdities  to 
gether  in  a  wandering  and  sometimes  purpose 
less  way,  and  seem  innocently  unaware  that 
they  are  absurdities,  is  the  basis  of  the  Amer 
ican  art,  if  my  position  is  correct.  Another 
feature  is  the  slurring  of  the  point.  A  third 
is  the  dropping  of  a  studied  remark  apparent 
ly  without  knowing  it,  as  if  one  were  thinking 
aloud.  The  fourth  and  last  is  the  pause. 

Artemus  Ward  dealt  in  numbers  three  and 
four  a  good  deal.  He  would  begin  to  tell 
with  great  animation  something  which  he 
seemed  to  think  was  wonderful ;  then  lose 
confidence,  and  after  an  apparently 
minded  pause  add  an  incongruous  rer 


HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY  9 

a  soliloquizing  way  ;  and  that  was  the  remark 
intended  to  explode  the  mine — and  it  did. 

For  instance,  he  would  say  eagerly,  excited 
ly,  "  I  once  knew  a  man  in  New  Zealand  who 
hadn't  a  tooth  in  his  head  " — here  his  anima 
tion  would  die  out ;  a  silent,  reflective  pause 
would  follow,  then  he  would  say  dreamily,  and 
as  if  to  himself,  "  and  yet  that  man  could  beat 
a  drum  better  than  any  man  I  ever  saw." 

The  pause  is  an  exceedingly  important  feat 
ure  in  any  kind  of  story,  and  a  frequently  re 
curring  feature,  too.  It  is  a  dainty  thing,  and 
delicate,  and  also  uncertain  and  treacherous ; 
for  it  must  be  exactly  the  right  length  —  no 
more  and  no  less — or  it  fails  of  its  purpose  and 
makes  trouble.  If  the  pause  is  too  short  the 
impressive  point  is  passed,  and  the  audience 
have  had  time  to  divine  that  a  surprise  is  in 
tended — and  then  you  can't  surprise  them,  of 
course. 

On  the  platform  I  used  to  tell  a  negro  ghost 
story  that  had  a  pause  in  front  of  the  snapper 
on  the  end,  and  that  pause  was  the  most  im 
portant  thing  in  the  whole  story.  If  I  got  it 
the  right  length  precisely,  I  could  spring  the 
finishing  ejaculation  with  effect  enough  to 
mak-j  some  impressible  girl  deliver  a  startled 
little  yelp  and  jump  out  of  her  seat — and  that 


IO  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

was  what  I  was  after.  This  story  was  called 
"  The  Golden  Arm,"  and  was  told  in  this  fash 
ion.  You  can  practise  with  it  yourself — and 
mind  you  look  out  for  the  pause  and  get  it 
right. 

THE   GOLDEN  ARM 

Once  'pon  a  time  dey  wuz  a  monsus  mean 
man,  en  he  live  'way  out  in  de  prairie  all  'lone 
by  hisself,  'cep'n  he  had  a  wife.  En  bimeby 
she  died,  en  he  tuck  en  toted  her  way  out  dah 
in  de  prairie  en  buried  her.  Well,  she  had  a 
golden  arm — all  solid  gold,  fum  de  shoulder 
down.  He  wuz  pow'ful  mean  —  pow'ful;  en 
dat  night  he  couldn't  sleep,  caze  he  want  dat 
golden  arm  so  bad. 

When  it  come  midnight  he  couldn't  stan'  it 
no  mo';  so  he  git  up,  he  did,  en  tuck  his  lan 
tern  en  shoved  out  thoo  de  storm  en  dug  her 
up  en  got  de  golden  arm  ;  en  he  bent  his  head 
down  'gin  de  win',  en  plowed  en  plowed  en 
plowed  thoo  de  snow.  Den  all  on  a  sudden 
he  stop  (make  a  considerable  pause  here,  and 
look  startled,  and  take  a  listening  attitude)  en 
say  :  "  My  Ian  ,  what's  dat !" 

En  he  listen — en  listen — en  de  win'  say  (set 
your  teeth  together  and  imitate  the  w.viling 
and  wheezing  singsong  of  the  wind),  "  Bzzz-z- 


HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY  II 

zzz  " — en  den,  way  back  yonder  whah  de  grave 
is,  he  hear  a  voice  ! — he  hear  a  voice  all  mix' 
up  in  de  win' — can't  hardly  tell  'em  'part  — 
"  Bzzz-zzz  —  W-h-o  —  g-o-t  —  m-y  —  g-o-l-d-e-n 
arm  ? — 7?z — zzz — W-h-o  g-o-t  m-y  g-o-l-d-e-n 
arm  ?  (You  ir.uct  begin  to  shiver  violently 
now.) 

En  he  begin  to  shiver  en  shake,  en  say,  "  Oh, 
my!  Ok,  my  Ian'!"  en  de  win'  blow  de  lan 
tern  out,  en  de  snow  en  sleet  blow  in  his  face 
en  mos'  choke  him,  en  he  start  a-plowin'  knee- 
deep  towards  home  mos'  dead,  he  so  sk'yerd 
—  en  pooty  soon  he  hear  de  voice  agin,  en 
(pause)  it  'us  comin'  after  him  !  "  Bzzz — zzz — 
zzz — W-h-o — g-o-t — m-y — g-o-l-d-e-n — arm?" 

When  he  git  to  de  pasture  he  hear  it  agin— 
closter  now,  en  a-comm/ — a-comin'  back  dah 
in  de  dark  en  de  storm — (repeat  the  wind  and 
the  voice).  When  he  git  to  de  house  he  rush 
up-stairs  en  jump  in  de  bed  en  kiver  up,  head 
and  years,  en  lay  dah  shiverin'  en  shakin' — en 
den  way  out  dah  he  hear  it  agin! — en  a- 
comin  !  En  bimeby  he  hear  (pause  —  awed, 
listening  attitude)  —  pat  —  pat  —  pat — hit's  a- 
comin  up-stairs  !  Den  he  hear  de  latch,  en  he 
know  it's  in  de  room  ! 

Den  pooty  soon  he  know  it's  ^-stannin  by 
de  bed!  (Pauae.)  Den — he  know  it's  ^-bendin 


12  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

down  over  him — en  he  cain't  skasely  git  his 
breath  !  Den — den — he  seem  to  feel  someth'n 
c-o-l-d,  right  down  'most  agin  his  head !  (Pause.) 

Den  de  voice  say,  right  at  his  year — "  W-h-o 
— g-o-t  —  m-y  —  g-o-l-d-e-n  arm?"  (Y^11  must 
Avail  it  out  very  plaintively  and  accusingly  ;- 
then  you  stare  steadily  and  impressively  into 
the  face  of  the  farthest-gone  auditor — a  girl, 
preferably — and  let  that  awe-inspiring  pause 
begin  to  build  itself  in  the  deep  hush.  When 
it  has  reached  exactly  the  right  length,  jump 
suddenly  at  that  girl  and  yell,  "  You've  got  it !" 

If  you've  got  the  pause  right,  she'll  fetch  a 
dear  little  yelp  and  spring  right  out  of  her 
shoes.  But  you  must  get  the  pause  right ;  and 
you  will  find  it  the  most  troublesome  and  ag 
gravating  and  uncertain  thing  you  ever  under 
took.) 


IN    DEFENCE    OF   HARRIET   SHELLEY 


IN    DEFENCE   OF   HARRIET   SHELLEY 


I  HAVE  committed  sins,  of  course ;  but  I 
have  not  committed  enough  of  them  to  en 
title  me  to  the  punishment  of  reduction  to 
the  bread  and  water  of  ordinary  literature  dur 
ing  six  years  when  I  might  have  been  living 
on  the  fat  diet  spread  for  the  righteous  in  Pro 
fessor  Dowden's  Life  of  Shelley,  if  I  had  been 
justly  dealt  with. 

During  these  six  years  I  have  been  living  a 
life  of  peaceful  ignorance.  I  was  not  aware 
that  Shelley's  first  wife  was  unfaithful  to  him, 
and  that  that  was  why  he  deserted  her  and 
wiped  the  stain  from  his  sensitive  honor  by 
entering  into  soiled  relations  with  Godwin's 
young  daughter.  This  was  all  new  to  me  when 
I  heard  it  lately,  and  was  told  that  the  proofs  of 
it  were  in  this  book,  and  that  this  book's  ver 
dict  is  accepted  in  the  girls'  colleges  of  Amer 
ica  and  its  view  taught  in  their  literary  classes. 


1 6  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

In  each  of  these  six  years  multitudes  of 
young  people  in  our  country  have  arrived  at 
the  Shelley-reading  age.  Are  these  six  multi 
tudes  unacquainted  with  this  life  of  Shelley? 
Perhaps  they  are;  indeed,  one  may  feel  pretty 
sure  that  the  great  bulk  of  them  are.  To 
these,  then,  I  address  myself,  in  the  hope  that 
some  account  of  this  romantic  historical  fable 
and  the  fabulist's  manner  of  constructing  and 
adorning  it  may  interest  them. 

First,  as-  to  its  literary  style.  Our  negroes 
in  America  have  several  ways  of  entertaining 
themselves  which  are  not  found  among  the 
whites  anywhere.  Among  these  inventions  of 
theirs  is  one  which  is  particularly  popular  with 
them.  It  is  a  competition  in  elegant  deport 
ment.  They  hire  a  hall  and  bank  the  spec 
tators'  seats  in  rising  tiers  along  the  two  sides, 
leaving  all  the  middle  stretch  of  the  floor  free. 
A  cake  is  provided  as  a  prize  for  the  winner  in 
the  competition,  and  a  bench  of  experts  in  de 
portment  is  appointed  to  award  it.  Some 
times  there  are  as  many  as  fifty  contestants, 
male  and  female,  and  five  hundred  spectators. 
One  at  a  time  the  contestants  enter,  clothed 
regardless  of  expense  in  what  each  considers 
the  perfection  of  style  and  taste,  and  walk 
down  the  vacant  central  space  and  back  again 


IN   DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  17 

with  that  multitude  of  critical  eyes  on  them. 
All  that  the  competitor  knows  of  fine  airs  and 
graces  he  throws  into  his  carriage,  all  that  he 
knows  of  seductive  expression  he  throws  into 
his  countenance.  He  may  use  all  the  helps 
he  can  devise :  watch-chain  to  twirl  with  his 
fingers,  cane  to  do  graceful  things  with,  snowy 
handkerchief  to  flourish  and  get  artful  effects 
out  of,  shiny  new  stovepipe  hat  to  assist  in  his 
courtly  bows;  and  the  colored  lady  may  have 
a  fan  to  work  up  her  effects  with,  and  smile 
over  and  blush  behind,  and  she  may  add  other 
helps,  according  to  her  judgment.  When  the 
review  by  individual  detail  is  over,  a  grand  re 
view  of  all  the  contestants  in  procession  fol 
lows,  with  all  the  airs  and  graces  and  all  the 
bowings  and  smirkings  on  exhibition  at  once, 
and  this  enables  the  bench  of  experts  to  make 
the  necessary  comparisons  and  arrive  at  a  ver 
dict.  The  successful  competitor  gets  the  prize 
which  I  have  before  mentioned,  and  an  abun 
dance  of  applause  and  envy  along  with  it. 
The  negroes  have  a  name  for  this  grave  de 
portment-tournament  ;  a  name  taken  from  the 
prize  contended  for.  They  call  it  a  Cake- 
Walk. 

This   Shelley  biography  is  a  literary  cake- 
walk.     The  ordinary  forms  of  speech  are  ab- 


1 8  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

sent  from  it.  All  the  pages,  all  the  para 
graphs,  walk  by  sedately,  elegantly,  not  to  say 
mincingly,  in  their  Sunday -best,  shiny  and 
sleek,  perfumed,  and  with  boutonnieres  in  their 
button-holes;  it  is  rare  to  find  even  a  chance 
sentence  that  has  forgotten  to  dress.  If  the 
book  wishes  to  tell  us  that  Mary  Godwin, 
child  of  sixteen,  had  known  afflictions,  the  fact 
saunters  forth  in  this  nobby  outfit:  "  Mary 
was  herself  not  unlearned  in  the  lore  of  pain  " 
— meaning  by  that  that  she  had  not  always 
travelled  on  asphalt ;  or,  as  some  authorities 
would  frame  it,  that  she  had  "  been  there  her 
self,"  a  form  which,  while  preferable  to  the 
book's  form,  is  still  not  to  be  recommended. 
If  the  book  wishes  to  tell  us  that  Harriet 
Shelley  hired  a  wet-nurse,  that  commonplace 
fact  gets  turned  into  a  dancing- master,  who 
does  his  professional  bow  before  us  in  pumps 
and  knee-breeches,  with  his  fiddle  under  one 
arm  and  his  crush-hat  under  the  other,  thus : 
"The  beauty  of  Harriet's  motherly  relation  to 
her  babe  was  marred  in  Shelley's  eyes  by  the 
introduction  into  his  house  of  a  hireling  nurse 
to  whom  was  delegated  the  mother's  tenderest 
office." 

This  is  perhaps  the  strangest  book  that  has 
seen  the  light  since  Frankenstein.     Indeed,  it 


IN    DEFENCE   OF   HARRIET   SHELLEY  19 

is  a  Frankenstein  itself ;  a  Frankenstein  with 
the  original  infirmity  supplemented  by  a  new 
one  ;  a  Frankenstein  with  the  reasoning  facul 
ty  wanting.  Yet  it  believes  it  can  reason,  and 
is  always  trying.  It  is  not  content  to  leave  a 
mountain  of  fact  standing  in  the  clear  sun 
shine,  where  the  simplest  reader  can  perceive 
its  form,  its  details,  and  its  relation  to  the  rest 
of  the  landscape,  but  thinks  it  must  help  him 
examine  it  and  understand  it ;  so  its  drifting 
mind  settles  upon  it  with  that  intent,  but  al 
ways  with  one  and  the  same  result :  there  is  a 
change  of  temperature  and  the  mountain  is 
hid  in  a  fog.  Every  time  it  sets  up  a  premise 
and  starts  to  reason  from  it,  there  is  a  surprise 
in  store  for  the  reader.  It  is  strangely  near 
sighted,  cross-eyed,  and  purblind.  Sometimes 
when  a  mastodon  walks  across  the  field  of  its 
vision  it  takes  it  for  a  rat ;  at  other  times  it 
does  not  see  it  at  all. 

The  materials  of  this  biographical  fable  are 
facts,  rumors,  and  poetry.  They  are  connect 
ed  together  and  harmonized  by  the  help  of 
suggestion,  conjecture,  innuendo,  perversion, 
and  semi-suppression. 

The  fable  has  a  distinct  object  in  view,  but 
this  object  is  not  acknowledged  in  set  words. 
Percy  Bysshe  Shelley  has  done  something 


20  HOW  TO   TELL   A   STORY 

which  in  the  case  of  other  men  is  called  a 
grave  crime ;  it  must  be  shown  that  in  his  case 
it  is  not  that,  because  he  does  not  think  as 
other  men  do  about  these  things. 

Ought  not  that  to  be  enough,  if  the  fabulist 
is  serious?  Having  proved  that  a  crime  is  not 
a  crime,  was  it  worth  while  to  go  on  and  fasten 
the  responsibility  of  a  crime  which  was  not  a 
crime  upon  somebody  else?  What  is  the  use 
of  hunting  down  and  holding  to  bitter  ac 
count  people  who  are  responsible  for  other 
people's  innocent  acts? 

Still,  the  fabulist  thinks  it  a  good  idea  to  do 
that.  In  his  view  Shelley's  first  wife,  Harriet, 
free  of  all  offence  as  far  as  we  have  historical 
facts  for  guidance,  must  be  held  unforgivably 
responsible  for  her  husband's  innocent  act  in 
deserting  her  and  taking  up  with  another 
woman. 

Any  one  will  suspect  that  this  task  has  its 
difficulties.  Any  one  will  divine  that  nice 
work  is  necessary  here,  cautious  work,  wily 
work,  and  that  there  is  entertainment  to  be 
had  in  watching  the  magician  do  it.  There  is 
indeed  entertainment  in  watching  him.  He 
arranges  his  facts,  his  rumors,  and  his  poems 
on  his  table  in  full  view  of  the  house,  and 
shows  you  that  everything  is  there — no  decep- 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  21 

tion,  everything  fair  and  aboveboard.  And 
this  is  apparently  true,  yet  there  is  a  defect, 
for  some  of  his  best  stock  is  hid  in  an  appen 
dix-basket  behind  the  door,  and  you  do  not 
come  upon  it  until  the  exhibition  is  over  and 
the  enchantment  of  your  mind  accomplished 
— as  the  magician  thinks. 

There  is  an  insistent  atmosphere  of  candor 
and  fairness  about  this  book  which  is  engag 
ing  at  first,  then  a  little  burdensome,  then  a 
trifle  fatiguing,  then  progressively  suspicious, 
annoying,  irritating,  and  oppressive.  It  takes 
one  some  little  time  to  find  out  that  phrases 
which  seem  intended  to  guide  the  reader 
aright  are  there  to  mislead  him ;  that  phrases 
which  seem  intended  to  throw  light  are  there 
to  throw  darkness ;  that  phrases  which  seem 
intended  to  interpret  a  fact  are  there  to  mis 
interpret  it ;  that  phrases  which  seem  intend 
ed  to  forestall  prejudice  are  there  to  create  it; 
that  phrases  which  seem  antidotes  are  poisons 
in  disguise.  The  naked  facts  arrayed  in  the 
book  establish  Shelley's  guilt  in  that  one  epi 
sode  which  disfigures  his  otherwise  superla 
tively  lofty  and  beautiful  life  ;  but  the  histori 
an's  careful  and  methodical  misinterpretation 
of  them  transfers  the  responsibility  to  the 
wife's  shoulders  —  as  he  persuades  himself. 


22  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

The  few  meagre  facts  of  Harriet  Shelley's  life, 
as  furnished  by  the  book,  acquit  her  of  offence  ; 
but  by  calling  in  the  forbidden  helps  of  rumor, 
gossip,  conjecture,  insinuation,  and  innuendo 
he  destroys  her  character  and  rehabilitates 
Shelley's — as  he  believes.  And  in  truth  his 
unheroic  work  has  not  been  barren  of  the  re 
sults  he  aimed  at ;  as  witness  the  assertion 
made  to  me  that  girls  in  the  colleges  of  Amer 
ica  are  taught  that  Harriet  Shelley  put  a  stain 
upon  her  husband's  honor,  and  that  that  was 
what  stung  him  into  repurifying  himself  by 
deserting  her  and  his  child  and  entering  into 
scandalous  relations  with  a  school -girl  ac 
quaintance  of  his. 

If  that  assertion  is  true,  they  probably  use  a 
reduction  of  this  work  in  those  colleges,  may 
be  only  a  sketch  outlined  from  it.  Such  a 
thing  as  that  could  be  harmful  and  mislead 
ing.  They  ought  to  cast  it  out  and  put  the 
whole  book  in  its  place.  It  would  not  de 
ceive.  It  would  not  deceive  the  janitor. 

All  of  this  book  is  interesting  on  account 
of  the  sorcerer's  methods  and  the  attractive 
ness  of  some  of  his  characters  and  the  repul- 
siveness  of  the  rest,  but  no  part  of  it  is  so 
much  so  as  are  the  chapters  wherein  he  tries 
to  think  he  thinks  he  sets  forth  the  causes 


IN  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY      23 

which  led  to  Shelley's  desertion  of  his  wife 
in  1814. 

Harriet  Westbrook  was  a  school-girl  sixteen 
years  old.  Shelley  was  teeming  with  advanced 
thought.  He  believed  that  Christianity  was  a 
degrading  and  selfish  superstition,  and  he  had 
a  deep  and  sincere  desire  to  rescue  one  of  his 
sisters  from  it.  Harriet  was  impressed  by  his 
various  philosophies  and  looked  upon  him  as 
an  intellectual  wonder — which  indeed  he  was. 
He  had  an  idea  that  she  could  give  him  valu 
able  help  in  his  scheme  regarding  his  sister; 
therefore  he  asked  her  to  correspond  with  him. 
She  was  quite  willing.  Shelley  was  not  think 
ing  of  love,  for  he  was  just  getting  over  a  pas 
sion  for  his  cousin,  Harriet  Grove,  and  just 
getting  well  steeped  in  one  for  Miss  Hitch- 
ener,  a  school-teacher.  What  might  happen 
to  Harriet  Westbrook  before  the  letter-writing 
was  ended  did  not  enter  his  mind.  Yet  an 
older  person  could  have  made  a  good  guess  at 
it,  for  in  person  Shelley  was  as  beautiful  as  an 
angel,  he  was  frank,  sweet,  winning,  unassum 
ing,  and  so  rich  in  unselfishnesses,  generosities, 
and  magnanimities  that  he  made  his  whole 
generation  seem  poor  in  these  great  qualities 
by  comparison.  Besides,  he  was  in  distress. 
His  college  had  expelled  him  for  writing  an 


24  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

atheistical  pamphlet  and  afflicting  the  rever 
end  heads  of  the  university  with  it,  his  rich 
father  and  grandfather  had  closed  their  purses 
against  him,  his  friends  were  cold.  Necessar 
ily,  Harriet  fell  in  love  with  him  ;  and  so  deep 
ly,  indeed,  that  there  was  no  way  for  Shelley 
to  save  her  from  suicide  but  to  marry  her. 
He  believed  himself  to  blame  for  this  state  of 
things,  so  the  marriage  took  place.  He  was 
pretty  fairly  in  love  with  Harriet,  although  he 
loved  Miss  Hitchener  better.  He  wrote  and 
explained  the  case  to  Miss  Hitchener  after  the 
wedding,  and  he  could  not  have  been  franker 
or  more  naive  and  less  stirred  up  about  the 
circumstance  if  the  matter  in  issue  had  been 
a  commercial  transaction  involving  thirty-five 
dollars. 

Shelley  was  nineteen.  He  was  not  a  youth, 
but  a  man.  He  had  never  had  any  youth. 
He  was  an  erratic  and  fantastic  child  during 
eighteen  years,  then  he  stepped  into  manhood, 
as  one  steps  over  a  door-sill.  He  was  curiously 
mature  at  nineteen  in  his  ability  to  do  inde 
pendent  thinking  on  the  deep  questions  of  life 
and  to  arrive  at  sharply  definite  decisions  re 
garding  them,  and  stick  to  them  —  stick  to 
them  and  stand  by  them  at  cost  of  bread, 
friendships,  esteem,  respect  and  approbation. 


IN  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY      25 

For  the  sake  of  his  opinions  he  was  willing 
to  sacrifice  all  these  valuable  things,  and  did 
sacrifice  them ;  and  went  on  doing  it,  too, 
when  he  could  at  any  moment  have  made 
himself  rich  and  supplied  himself  with  friends 
and  esteem  by  compromising  with  his  father, 
at  the  moderate  expense  of  throwing  over 
board  one  or  two  indifferent  details  of  his 
cargo  of  principles. 

He  and  Harriet  eloped  to  Scotland  and  got 
married.  They  took  lodgings  in  Edinburgh 
of  a  sort  answerable  to  their  purse,  which  was 
about  empty,  and  there  their  life  was  a  happy 
one  and  grew  daily  more  so.  They  had  only 
themselves  for  company,  but  they  needed  no 
additions  to  it.  They  were  as  cozy  and  con 
tented  as  birds  in  a  nest.  Harriet  sang  even 
ings  or  read  aloud  ;  also  she  studied  and  tried 
to  improve  her  mind,  her  husband  instructing 
her  in  Latin.  She  was  very  beautiful,  she  was 
modest,  quiet,  genuine,  and,  according  to  her 
husband's  testimony,  she  had  no  fine  lady  airs 
or  aspirations  about  her.  In  Matthew  Arnold's 
judgment,  she  was  "a  pleasing  figure." 

The  pair  remained  five  weeks  in  Edinburgh, 
and  then  took  lodgings  in  York,  where  Shel 
ley's  college  mate,  Hogg,  lived.  Shelley  pres 
ently  ran  down  to  London,  and  Hogg  took 


26  HOW  TO  TELL  A  STORY 

this  opportunity  to  make  love  to  the  young 
wife.  She  repulsed  him,  and  reported  the  fact 
to  her  husband  when  he  got  back.  It  seems 
a  pity  that  Shelley  did  not  copy  this  credit 
able  conduct  of  hers  some  time  or  other  when 
under  temptation,  so  that  we  might  have  seen 
the  author  of  his  biography  hang  the  miracle 
in  the  skies  and  squirt  rainbows  at  it. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  year  of  marriage — 
the  most  trying  year  for  any  young  couple,  for 
then  the  mutual  failings  are  coming  one  by 
one  to  light,  and  the  necessary  adjustments 
are  being  made  in  pain  and  tribulation — Shel 
ley  was  able  to  recognize  that  his  marriage 
venture  had  been  a  safe  one.  As  we  have 
seen,  his  love  for  his  wife  had  begun  in  a 
rather  shallow  way  and  with  not  much  force, 
but  now  it  was  become  deep  and  strong, 
which  entitles  his  wife  to  a  broad  credit  mark, 
one  may  admit.  He  addresses  a  long  and  lov 
ing  poem  to  her,  in  which  both  passion  and 
worship  appear : 

Exhibit  A 

"O  thou 

Whose  dear  love  gleamed  upon  the  gloomy  path 
Which  this  lone  spirit  travelled, 

.  wilt  thou  not  turn 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  27 

Those  spirit-beaming  eyes  and  look  on  me, 
Until  I  be  assured  that  Earth  is  Heaven 
And  Heaven  is  Earth? 

Harriet!  let  death  all  mortal  ties  dissolve, 
But  ours  shall  not  be  mortal." 

Shelley  also  wrote  a  sonnet  to  her  in  August 
of  this  same  year  in  celebration  of  her  birth 
day : 

Exhibit  B 

"  Ever  as  now  with  Love  and  Virtue's  glow 
May  thy  unwithering  soul  not  cease  to  burn, 
Still   may  thine    heart  with   those    pure   thoughts 

o'erflow 

Which  force  from  mine  such  quick  and  warm  re 
turn." 

Was  the  girl  of  seventeen  glad  and  proud 
and  happy?  We  may  conjecture  that  she  was. 

That  was  the  year  1812.  Another  year 
passed  —  still  happily,  still  successfully  —  a 
child  was  born  in  June,  1813,  and  in  Septem 
ber,  three  months  later,  Shelley  addresses  a 
poem  to  this  child,  lanthe,  in  which  he  points 
out  just  when  the  little  creature  is  most  par 
ticularly  dear  to  him : 

Exhibit  C 

"  Dearest  when  most  thy  tender  traits  express 
The  image  of  thy  mother's  loveliness." 


28  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

Up  to  this  point  the  fabulist  counsel  for 
Shelley  and  prosecutor  of  his  young  wife  has 
had  easy  sailing,  but  now  his  trouble  begins, 
for  Shelley  is  getting  ready  to  make  some  un 
pleasant  history  for  himself,  and  it  will  be  nec 
essary  to  put  the  blame  of  it  on  the  wife. 

Shelley  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  a 
charming  gray-haired,  young-hearted  Mrs.  Boin- 
ville,  whose  face  "  retained  a  certain  youthful 
beauty";  she  lived  at  Bracknell,  and  had  a 
young  daughter  named  Cornelia  Turner,  who 
was  equipped  with  many  fascinations.  Ap 
parently  these  people  were  sufficiently  senti 
mental.  Hogg  says  of  Mrs.  Boinville : 

"  The  greater  part  of  her  associates  were  odious.  I 
generally  found  there  two  or  three  sentimental  young 
butchers,  an  eminently  philosophical  tinker,  and  sev 
eral  very  unsophisticated  medical  practitioners  or  med 
ical  students,  all  of  low  origin  and  vulgar  and  offensive 
manners.  They  sighed,  turned  up  their  eyes,  retailed 
philosophy,  such  as  it  was,"  etc. 

Shelley  moved  to  Bracknell,  July  27  (this  is 
still  1813),  purposely  to  be  near  this  unwhole 
some  prairie-dogs'  nest.  The  fabulist  says: 
"  It  was  the  entrance  into  a  world  more  ami 
able  and  exquisite  than  he  had  yet  known." 

"  In  this  acquaintance  the  attraction  was 
mutual " — and  presently  it  grew  to  be  very 


'•  3 

IN    DEFENCE   OF    H^^IBT   SHELLEY  29 

mutual  indeed,  between  Shelley  and  Cornelia 
Turner,  when  they  got  to  studying  the  Italian 
poets  together.  Shelley,  "  responding  like  a 
tremulous  instrument  to  every  breath  of  pas 
sion  or  of  sentiment,"  had  his  chance  here.  It 
took  only  four  days  for  Cornelia's  attractions 
to  begin  to  dim  Harriet's.  Shelley  arrived  on 
the  27th  of  July ;  on  the  3ist  he  wrote  a  son 
net  to  Harriet  in  which  "  one  detects  already 
the  little  rift  in  the  lover's  lute  which  had 
seemed  to  be  healed  or  never  to  have  gaped  at 
all  when  the  later  and  happier  sonnet  to  lanthe 
was  written" — in  September,  we  remember: 

Exhibit  D 

"EVENING.      TO   HARRIET 

"O  thou  bright  Sun!     Beneath  the  dark  blue  line 
Of  western  distance  that  sublime  descendest, 
And,  gleaming  lovelier  as  thy  beams  decline, 
Thy  million  hues  to  every  vapor  lendest, 
And  over  cobweb,  lawn,  and  grove,  and  stream 
Sheddest  the  liquid  magic  of  thy  light, 
Till  calm  Earth,  with  the  parting  splendor  bright, 
Shows  like  the  vision  of  a  beauteous  dream ; 
What  gazer  now  with  astronomic  eye 
Could  coldly  count  the  spots  within  thy  sphere? 
Such  were  thy  lover,  Harriet,  could  he  fly 
The  thoughts  of  all  that  makes  his  passion  dear, 
And  turning  senseless  from  thy  warm  caress 
Pick  flaws  in  our  close-woven  happiness." 


^O  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

I  cannot  find  the  "rift";  still  it  may  be 
there.  What  the  poem  seems  to  say,  is,  that  a 
person  would  be  coldly  ungrateful  who  could 
consent  to  count  and  consider  little  spots  and 
flaws  in  such  a  warm,  great,  satisfying  sun  as 
Harriet  is.  It  is  a  "  little  rift  which  had 
seemed  to  be  healed,  or  never  to  have  gaped 
at  all."  That  is,  "  one  detects"  a  little  rift 
which  perhaps  had  never  existed.  How  does 
one  do  that  ?  How  does  one  see  the  invisible  ? 
It  is  the  fabulist's  secret;  he  knows  how  to 
detect  what  does  not  exist,  he  knows  how  to 
see  what  is  not  seeable ;  it  is  his  gift,  and  he 
works  it  many  a  time  to  poor  dead  Harriet 
Shelley's  deep  damage. 

"  As  yet,  however,  if  there  was  a  speck  upon 
Shelley's  happiness  it  was  no  more  than  a 
speck  " — meaning  the  one  which  one  detects 
where  "  it  may  never  have  gaped  at  all " — 
"  nor  had  Harriet  cause  for  discontent." 

Shelley's  Latin  instructions  to  his  wife  had 
ceased.  "  From  a  teacher  he  had  now  become 
a  pupil."  Mrs.  Boinville  and  her  young  mar 
ried  daughter  Cornelia  were  teaching  him  Ital 
ian  poetry ;  a  fact  which  warns  one  to  receive 
with  some  caution  that  other  statement  that 
Harriet  had  no  "  cause  for  discontent." 

Shelley  had  stopped  instructing  Harriet  in 


IN   DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  31 

Latin,  as  before  mentioned.  The  biographer 
thinks  that  the  busy  life  in  London  some  time 
back,  and  the  intrusion  of  the  baby,  account 
for  this.  These  were  hindrances,  but  were 
there  no  others?  He  is  always  overlooking  a 
detail  here  and  there  that  might  be  valuable 
in  helping  us  understand  a  situation.  For  in 
stance,  when  a  man  has  been  hard  at  work  at 
the  Italian  poets  with  a  pretty  woman,  hour 
after  hour,  and  responding  like  a  tremulous 
instrument  to  every  breath  of  passion  or  of 
sentiment  in  the  meantime,  that  man  is  dog- 
tired  when  he  gets  home,  and  he  caiit  teach 
his  wife  Latin;  it  would  be  unreasonable  to 
expect  it. 

Up  to  this  time  we  have  submitted  to  hav 
ing  Mrs.  Boinville  pushed  upon  us  as  ostensi 
bly  concerned  in  these  Italian  lessons,  but  the 
biographer  drops  her  now,  of  his  own  accord. 
Cornelia  "perhaps"  is  sole  teacher.  Hogg 
says  she  was  a  prey  to  a  kind  of  sweet  melan 
choly,  arising  from  causes  purely  imaginary ; 
she  required  consolation,  and  found  it  in  Pe 
trarch.  He  also  says,  "  Bysshe  entered  at 
once  fully  into  her  views  and  caught  the  soft 
infection,  breathing  the  tenderest  and  sweetest 
melancholy,  as  every  true  poet  ought." 

Then  the  author  of  the  book  interlards  a 


32  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

most  stately  and  fine  compliment  to  Cornelia, 
furnished  by  a  man  of  approved  judgment  who 
knew  her  well  "  in  later  years."  It  is  a  very 
good  compliment  indeed,  and  she  no  doubt 
deserved  it  in  her  "  later  years,"  when  she  had 
for  generations  ceased  to  be  sentimental  and 
lackadaisical,  and  was  no  longer  engaged  in 
enchanting  young  husbands  and  sowing  sor 
row  for  young  wives.  But  why  is  that  com 
pliment  to  that  old  gentlewoman  intruded 
there?  Is  it  to  make  the  reader  believe  she 
was  well-chosen  and  safe  society  for  a  young, 
sentimental  husband?  The  biographer's  de 
vice  was  not  well  planned.  That  old  person 
was  not  present — it  was  her  other  self  that  was 
there,  her  young,  sentimental,  melancholy, 
warm-blooded  self,  in  those  early  sweet  times 
before  antiquity  had  cooled  her  off  and  mossed 
her  back. 

"  In  choosing  for  friends  such  women  as 
Mrs.  Newton,  Mrs.  Boinville,  and  Cornelia 
Turner,  Shelley  gave  good  proof  of  his  insight 
and  discrimination."  That  is  the  fabulist's 
opinion — Harriet  Shelley's  is  not  reported. 

Early  in  August,  Shelley  was  in  London  try 
ing  to  raise  money.  In  September  he  wrote 
the  poem  to  the  baby,  already  quoted  from. 
In  the  first  week  of  October  Shelley  and  fam- 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  33 

ily  went  to  Warwick,  then  to  Edinburgh,  ar 
riving  there  about  the  middle  of  the  month. 

"  Harriet  was  happy."  Why?  The  author 
furnishes  a  reason,  but  hides  from  us  whether 
it  is  history  or  conjecture ;  it  is  because  "  the 
babe  had  borne  the  journey  well."  It  has  all 
the  aspect  of  one  of  his  artful  devices — flung 
in  in  his  favorite  casual  way — the  way  he  has 
when  he  wants  to  draw  one's  attention  away 
from  an  obvious  thing  and  amuse  it  with  some 
trifle  that  is  less  obvious  but  more  useful — in 
a  history  like  this.  The  obvious  thing  is,  that 
Harriet  was  happy  because  there  was  much 
territory  between  her  husband  and  Cornelia 
Turner  now ;  and  because  the  perilous  Italian 
lessons  were  taking  a  rest ;  and  because,  if 
there  chanced  to  be  any  respondings  like  a 
tremulous  instrument  to  every  breath  of  pas 
sion  or  of  sentiment  in  stock  in  these  days, 
she  might  hope  to  get  a  share  of  them  herself; 
and  because,  with  her  husband  liberated,  now, 
from  the  fetid  fascinations  of  that  sentimental 
retreat  so  pitilessly  described  by  Hogg,  who 
also  dubbed  it  "Shelley's  paradise"  later,  she 
might  hope  to  persuade  him  to  stay  away  from 
it  permanently ;  and  because  she  might  also 
hope  that  his  brain  would  cool,  now,  and  his 
heart  become  healthy,  and  both  brain  and 
3 


34  HOW   TO    TELL   A    STORY 

heart  consider  the  situation  and  resolve  that 
it  would  be  a  right  and  manly  thing  to  stand 
by  this  girl-wife  and  her  child  and  see  that 
they  were  honorably  dealt  with,  and  cherished 
and  protected  and  loved  by  the  man  that  had 
promised  these  things,  and  so  be  made  happy 
and  kept  so.  And  because,  also — may  we  con 
jecture  this? — we  may  hope  for  the  privilege 
of  taking  up  our  cozy  Latin  lessons  again,  that 
used  to  be  so  pleasant  and  brought  us  so  near 
together — so  near,  indeed,  that  often  our  heads 
touched,  just  as  heads  do  over  Italian  lessons ; 
and  our  hands  met  in  casual  and  unintentional, 
but  still  most  delicious  and  thrilling  little  con 
tacts  and  momentary  clasps,  just  as  they  in 
evitably  do  over  Italian  lessons.  Suppose  one 
should  say  to  any  young  wife :  "  I  find  that 
your  husband  is  poring  over  the  Italian  poets 
and  being  instructed  in  the  beautiful  Italian 
language  by  the  lovely  Cornelia  Robinson  " — 
would  that  cozy  picture  fail  to  rise  before  her 
mind?  would  its  possibilities  fail  to  suggest 
themselves  to  her?  would  there  be  a  pang  in 
her  heart  and  a  blush  on  her  face  ?  or,  on  the 
contrary,  would  the  remark  give  her  pleasure, 
make  her  joyous  and  gay?  Why,  one  needs 
only  to  make  the  experiment — the  result  will 
not  be  uncertain. 


IX  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY      35 

However,  we  learn — by  authority  of  deeply 
reasoned  and  searching  conjecture — that  the 
baby  bore  the  journey  well,  and  that  that  was 
why  the  young  wife  was  happy.  That  accounts 
for  two  per  cent,  of  the  happiness,  but  it  was 
not  right  to  imply  that  it  accounted  for  the 
other  ninety-eight  also. 

Peacock,  a  scholar,  poet,  and  friend  of  the 
Shelleys,  was  of  their  party  when  they  went 
away.  He  used  to  laugh  at  the  Boinville 
menagerie,  and  "  was  not  a  favorite."  One  of 
the  Boinville  group,  writing  to  Hogg,  said, 
"  The  Shelleys  have  made  an  addition  to  their 
party  in  the  person  of  a  cold  scholar,  who,  I 
think,  has  neither  taste  nor  feeling.  This, 
Shelley  will  perceive  sooner  or  later,  for  his 
warm  nature  craves  sympathy."  True,  and 
Shelley  will  fight  his  way  back  there  to  get  it 
—there  will  be  no  way  to  head  him  off. 

Towards  the  end  of  November  it  was  neces 
sary  for  Shelley  to  pay  a  business  visit  to  Lon~ 
don,  and  he  conceived  the  project  of  leaving 
Harriet  and  the  baby  in  Edinburgh  with  Har 
riet's  sister,  Eliza  Westbrook,  a  sensible,  prac 
tical  maiden  lady  about  thirty  years  old,  who 
had  spent  a  great  part  of  her  time  with  the 
family  since  the  marriage.  She  was  an  esti 
mable  woman,  and  Shelley  had  had  reason  to 


36  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

like  her,  and  did  like  her  ;  but  along  about  this 
time  his  feeling  towards  her  changed.  Part  of 
Shelley's  plan,  as  he  wrote  Hogg,  was  to  spend 
his  London  evenings  with  the  Newtons — mem 
bers  of  the  Boinville  Hysterical  Society.  But, 
alas,  when  he  arrived  early  in  December,  that 
pleasant  game  was  partially  blocked,  for  Eliza 
and  the  family  arrived  with  him.  We  are  left 
destitute  of  conjectures  at  this  point  by  the 
biographer,  and  it  is  my  duty  to  supply  one. 
I  chance  the  conjecture  that  it  was  Eliza  who 
interfered  with  that  game.  I  think  she  tried 
to  do  what  she  could  towards  modifying  the 
Boinville  connection,  in  the  interest  of  her 
young  sister's  peace  and  honor. 

If  it  was  she  who  blocked  that  game,  she 
was  not  strong  enough  to  block  the  next  one. 
Before  the  month  and  year  were  out — no  date 
given,  let  us  call  it  Christmas — Shelley  and 
family  were  nested  in  a  furnished  house  in 
Windsor,  "  at  no  great  distance  from  the  Boin- 
villes" — these  decoys  still  residing  atBracknell. 

What  we  need,  now,  is  a  misleading  conject 
ure.  We  get  it  with  characteristic  promptness 
and  depravity: 

"  But  Prince  Athanase  found  not  the  aged  Zonoras, 
the  friend  of  his  boyhood,  in  any  wanderings  to  Wind 
sor.  Dr.  Lind  had  died  a  year  since,  and  with  his 


IN  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY      37 

death  Windsor  must  have  lost,  for  Shelley,  its  chief 
attraction." 

Still,  not  to  mention  Shelley's  wife,  there 
was  Bracknell,  at  any  rate.  While  Bracknell 
remains,  all  solace  is  not  lost.  Shelley  is  rep 
resented  by  this  biographer  as  doing  a  great 
many  careless  things,  but  to  my  mind  this  hir 
ing  a  furnished  house  for  three  months  in  or 
der  to  be  with  a  man  who  has  been  dead  a 
year,  is  the  carelessest  of  them  all.  One  feels 
for  him — that  is  but  natural,  and  does  us  hon 
or  besides — yet  one  is  vexed,  for  all  that.  He 
could  have  written  and  asked  about  the  aged 
Zonoras  before  taking  the  house.  He  may 
not  have  had  the  address,  but  that  is  nothing 
— any  postman  would  know  the  aged  Zonoras  ; 
a  dead  postman  would  remember  a  name  like 
that. 

And  yet,  why  throw  a  rag  like  this  to  us 
ravening  wolves?  Is  it  seriously  supposable 
that  we  will  stop  to  chew  it  and  let  our  prey 
escape?  No,  we  are  getting  to  expect  this 
kind  of  device,  and  to  give  it  merely  a  sniff  for 
certainty's  sake  and  then  walk  around  it  and 
leave  it  lying.  Shelley  was  not  after  the  aged 
Zonoras  ;  he  was  pointed  for  Cornelia  and  the 
Italian  lessons,  for  his  warm  nature  was  crav 
ing  sympathy. 


38  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 


II 


THE  year  1813  is  just  ended  now,  and  we 
step  into  1814. 

To  recapitulate :  how  much  of  Cornelia's 
society  has  Shelley  had,  thus  far?  Portions 
of  August  and  September,  and  four  days  of 
July.  That  is  to  say,  he  has  had  opportunity 
to  enjoy  it,  more  or  less,  during  that  brief  pe 
riod.  Did  he  want  some  more  of  it  ?  We 
must  fall  back  upon  history,  and  then  go  to 
conjecturing. 

"  In  the  early  part  of  the  year  1814,  Shelley  was  a 
frequent  visitor  at  Bracknell." 

"  Frequent "  is  a  cautious  word,  in  this  au 
thor's  mouth ;  the  very  cautiousness  of  it,  the 
vagueness  of  it,  provokes  suspicion;  it  makes 
one  suspect  that  this  frequency  was  more  fre 
quent  than  the  mere  common  every-day  kinds 
of  frequency  which  one  is  in  the  habit  of  aver 
aging  up  with  the  unassuming  term  "  frequent." 
I  think  so  because  they  fixed  up  a  bedroom 
for  him  in  the  Boinville  house.  One  doesn't 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  39 

need  a  bedroom  if  one  is  only  going  to  run 
over  now  and  then  in  a  disconnected  way  to 
respond  like  a  tremulous  instrument  to  every 
breath  of  passion  or  of  sentiment  and  rub  up 
one's  Italian  poetry  a  little. 

The  young  wife  was  not  invited,  perhaps. 
If  she  was,  she  most  certainly  did  not  come, 
or  she  would  have  straightened  the  room  up ; 
the  most  ignorant  of  us  knows  that  a  wife 
would  not  endure  a  room  in  the  condition  in 
which  Hogg  found  this  one  when  he  occupied 
it  one  night.  Shelley  was  away — why,  nobody 
can  divine.  Clothes  were  scattered  about, 
there  were  books  on  every  side :  "  Wherever  a 
book  could  be  laid  was  an  open  book  turned 
down  on  its  face  to  keep  its  place."  It  seems 
plain  that  the  wife  was  not  invited.  No,  not 
that ;  I  think  she  was  invited,  but  said  to  her 
self  that  she  could  not  bear  to  go  there  and 
see  another  young  woman  touching  heads  with 
her  husband  over  an  Italian  book  and  making 
thrilling  hand-contacts  with  him  accidentally. 
As  remarked,  he  was  a  frequent  visitor  there, 
"where  he  found  an  easeful  resting-place  in 
the  house  of  Mrs.  Boinville — the  white-haired 
Maimuna — and  of  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Turner." 
The  aged  Zonoras  was  deceased,  but  the  white- 
haired  Maimuna  was  still  on  deck,  as  we  see. 


40  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

"Three  charming  ladies  entertained  the  mock 
er  (Hogg)  with  cups  of  tea,  late  hours,  Wie- 
land's  Agathon,  sighs  and  smiles,  and  the  ce 
lestial  manna  of  refined  sentiment."  "  Such," 
says  Hogg,  "  were  the  delights  of  Shelley's 
paradise  in  Bracknell." 

The  white-haired  Maimuna  presently  writes 
to  Hogg: 

"  I  will  not  have  you  despise  home-spun  pleasures. 
Shelley  is  making  a  trial  of  them  with  us — " 

A  trial  of  them.  It  may  be  called  that.  It 
was  March  1 1,  and  he  had  been  in  the  house  a 
month.  She  continues : 

Shelley  "  likes  them  so  well  that  he  is  resolved  to 
leave  off  rambling — " 

But  he  has  already  left  it  off.  He  has  been 
there  a  month. 

"  And  begin  a  course  of  them  himself." 

But  he  has  already  begun  it.  He  has  been 
at  it  a  month.  He  likes  it  so  well  that  he  has 
forgotten  all  about  his  wife,  as  a  letter  of  his 
reveals. 

"  Seriously,  I  think  his  mind  and  body  want  rest." 

Yet  he  has  been  resting  both  for  a  month, 
with  Italian,  and  tea,  and  manna  of  sentiment, 


IN    DEFENCE    OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  41 

and  late  hours,  and  every  restful  thing  a  young 
husband  could  need  for  the  refreshment  of 
weary  limbs  and  a  sore  conscience,  and  a  nag 
ging  sense  of  shabbiness  and  treachery. 

"  His  journeys  after  what  he  has  never  found  have 
racked  his  purse  and  his  tranquillity.  He  is  resolved 
to  take  a  littl^  care  of  the  former,  in  pity  to  the  latter, 
which  I  applaud,  and  shall  second  with  all  my  might." 

But  she  does  not  say  whether  the  young 
wife,  a  stranger  and  lonely  yonder,  wants  an 
other  woman  and  her  daughter  Cornelia  to  be 
lavishing  so  much  inflamed  interest  on  her 
husband  or  not.  That  young  wife  is  always 
silent — we  are  never  allowed  to  hear  from  her. 
She  must  have  opinions  about  such  things, 
she  cannot  be  indifferent,  she  must  be  approv 
ing  or  disapproving,  surely  she  would  speak  if 
she  were  allowed — even  to-day  and  from  her 
grave  she  would,  if  she  could,  I  think — but  we 
get  only  the  other  side,  they  keep  her  silent 
always. 

"  He  has  deeply  interested  us.  In  the  course  of 
your  intimacy  he  must  have  made  you  feel  what  we 
now  feel  for  him.  He  is  seeking  a  house  close  to  us — 

Ah !  he  is  not  close  enough  yet,  it  seems — 

41  and  if  he  succeeds  we  shall  have  an  additional  mo 
tive  to  induce  you  to  come  among  us  in  the  summer." 


42  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

The  reader  would  puzzle  a  long  time  and 
not  guess  the  biographer's  comment  upon  the 
above  letter.  It  is  this : 

"These  sound  like  words  of  a  considerate  and  ju 
dicious  friend." 

That  is  what  he  thinks.  That  is,  it  is  what 
he  thinks  he  thinks.  No,  that  is  not  quite  it : 
it  is  what  he  thinks  he  can  stupefy  a  particu 
larly  and  unspeakably  dull  reader  into  think 
ing  it  is  what  he  thinks.  He  makes  that  com 
ment  with  the  knowledge  that  Shelley  is  in 
love  with  this  woman's  daughter,  and  that  it 
is  because  of  the  fascinations  of  these  two  that 
Shelley  has  deserted  his  wife — for  this  month, 
considering  all  the  circumstances,  and  his  new 
passion,  and  his  employment  of  the  time, 
amounted  to  desertion ;  that  is  its  rightful 
name.  We  cannot  know  how  the  wife  re 
garded  it  and  felt  about  it ;  but  if  she  could 
have  read  the  letter  which  Shelley  was  writing 
to  Hogg  four  or  five  days  later,  we  could  guess 
her  thought  and  how  she  felt.  Hear  him  : 


"  I  have  been  staying  with  Mrs.  Boinville  for  the 
last  month ;  I  have  escaped,  in  the  society  of  all  that 
philosophy  and  friendship  combine,  from  the  dismay 
ing  solitude  of  myself." 


IN  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY      43 

It  is  fair  to  conjecture  that  he  was  feeling 
ashamed. 

"  They  have  revived  in  my  heart  the  expiring  flame 
of  life.  I  have  felt  myself  translated  to  a  paradise 
which  has  nothing  of  mortality  but  its  transitoriness ; 
my  heart  sickens  at  the  view  of  that  necessity  which 
will  quickly  divide  me  from  the  delightful  tranquillity 
of  this  happy  home — for  it  has  become  my  home. 


"  Eliza  is  still  with  us — not  here  ! — but  will  be  with 
me  when  the  infinite  malice  of  destiny  forces  me  to 
depart." 

Eliza  is  she  who  blocked  that  game — the 
game  in  London — the  one  where  we  were  pur 
posing  to  dine  every  night  with  one  of  the 
"three  charming  ladies"  who  fed  tea  and 
manna  and  late  hours  to  Hogg  at  Bracknell. 

Shelley  could  send  Eliza  away,  of  course ; 
could  have  cleared  her  out  loner  acfo  if  so 

£>          o 

minded,  just  as  he  had  previously  done  with  a 
predecessor  of  hers  whom  he  had  first  wor 
shipped  and  then  turned  against ;  but  perhaps 
she  was  useful  there  as  a  thin  excuse  for  stay 
ing  away  himself. 

"I  am  now  but  little  inclined  to  contest  this  point. 
I  certainly  hate  her  with  all  my  heart  and  soul.  .  .  . 

"  It  is  a  sight  which  awakens  an  inexpressible  sen 
sation  of  disgust  and  horror,  to  see  her  caress  my  poor 


44  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

little  lanthe,  in  whom  I  may  hereafter  find  the  con 
solation  of  sympathy.  I  sometimes  feel  faint  with  the 
fatigue  of  checking  the  overflowings  of  my  unbounded 
abhorrence  for  this  miserable  wretch.  But  she  is  no 
more  than  a  blind  and  loathsome  worm,  that  cannot 
see  to  sting. 

"  I  have  begun  to  learn  Italian  again.  .  .  .  Cornelia 
assists  me  in  this  language.  Did  I  not  once  tell  you 
that  I  thought  her  cold  and  reserved  ?  She  is  the  re 
verse  of  this,  as  she  is  the  reverse  of  everything  bad. 
She  inherits  all  the  divinity  of  her  mother.  ...  I 
have  sometimes  forgotten  that  I  am  not  an  inmate  of 
this  delightful  home — that  a  time  will  come  which 
will  cast  me  again  into  the  boundless  ocean  of  ab 
horred  society. 

"  I  have  written  nothing  but  one  stanza,  which  has 
no  meaning,  and  that  I  have  only  written  in  thought : 

"  Thy  dewy  looks  sink  in  my  breast ; 

Thy  gentle  words  stir  poison  there ; 
Thou  hast  disturbed  the  only  rest 

That  was  the  portion  of  despair. 
Subdued  to  duty's  hard  control, 

I  could  have  borne  my  wayward  lot : 
The  chains  that  bind  this  ruined  soul 

Had  cankered  then,  but  crushed  it  not. 

"  This  is  the  vision  of  a  delirious  and  distempered 
dream,  which  passes  away  at  the  cold  clear  light  of 
morning.  Its  surpassing  excellence  and  exquisite 
perfections  have  no  more  reality  than  the  color  of  an 
autumnal  sunset." 

Then  it  did  not  refer  to  his  wife.     That  is 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  45 

plain  ;  otherwise  he  would  have  said  so.  It  is 
well  that  he  explained  that  it  has  no  meaning, 
for  if  he  had  not  done  that,  the  previous  soft 
references  to  Cornelia  and  the  way  he  has 
come  to  feel  about  her  now  would  make  us 
think  she  was  the  person  who  had  inspired  it 
while  teaching  him  how  to  read  the  warm  and 
ruddy  Italian  poets  during  a  month. 

The  biography  observes  that  portions  of 
this  letter  "  read  like  the  tired  moaning  of  a 
wounded  creature."  Guesses  at  the  nature  of 
the  wound  are  permissible;  we  will  hazard 
one. 

Read  by  the  light  of  Shelley's  previous  his 
tory,  his  letter  seems  to  be  the  cry  of  a  tort 
ured  conscience.  Until  this  time  it  was  a 
conscience  that  had  never  felt  a  pang  or  known 
a  smirch.  It  was  the  conscience  of  one  who, 
until  this  time,  had  never  done  a  dishonorable 
thing,  or  an  ungenerous,  or  cruel,  or  treacher 
ous  thing,  but  was  now  doing  all  of  these,  and 
was  keenly  aware  of  it.  Up  to  this  time  Shel 
ley  had  been  master  of  his  nature,  and  it  was 
a  nature  which  was  as  beautiful  and  as  nearly 
perfect  as  any  merely  human  nature  may  be. 
But  he  was  drunk,  now,  with  a  debasing  pas 
sion,  and  was  not  himself.  There  is  nothing 
in  his  previous  history  that  is  in  character  with 


46  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

the  Shelley  of  this  letter.  He  had  done  boy 
ish  things,  foolish  things,  even  crazy  things, 
but  never  a  thing  to  be  ashamed  of.  He  had 
done  things  which  one  might  laugh  at,  but  the 
privilege  of  laughing  was  limited  always  to 
the  thing  itself;  you  could  not  laugh  at  the 
motive  back  of  it — that  was  high,  that  was 
noble.  His  most  fantastic  and  quixotic  acts 
had  a  purpose  back  of  them  which  made  them 
fine,  often  great,  and  made  the  rising  laugh 
seem  profanation  and  quenched  it ;  quenched 
it,  and  changed  the  impulse  to  homage.  Up 
to  this  time  he  had  been  loyalty  itself,  where 
his  obligations  lay — treachery  was  new  to  him; 
he  had  never  done  an  ignoble  thing — baseness 
was  new  to  him  ;  he  had  never  done  an  un 
kind  thing — that  also  was  new  to  him. 

This  was  the  author  of  that  letter,  this  was 
the  man  who  had  deserted  his  young  wife  and 
was  lamenting,  because  he  must  leave  another 
woman's  house  which  had  become  a  "  home  " 
to  him,  and  go  away.  Is  he  lamenting  mainly 
because  he  must  go  back  to  his  wife  and  child? 
No,  the  lament  is  mainly  for  what  he  is  to 
leave  behind  him.  The  physical  comforts  of 
the  house?  No,  in  his  life  he  had  never  at 
tached  importance  to  such  things.  Then  the 
thing  which  he  grieves  to  leave  is  narrowed 


IN    DEFENCE    OF    HARRIET    SHELLEY  47 

down  to  a  person — to  the  person  whose  "  dewy 
looks"  had  sunk  into  his  breast,  and  whose 
seducing  words  had  "stirred  poison  there." 

He  was  ashamed  of  himself,  his  conscience 
was  upbraiding  him.  He  was  the  slave  of  a 
degrading  love  ;  he  was  drunk  with  his  passion, 
the  real  Shelley  was  in  temporary  eclipse.  This 
is  the  verdict  which  his  previous  history  must 
certainly  deliver  upon  this  episode,  I  think. 

One  must  be  allowed  to  assist  himself  with 
conjectures  like  these  when  trying  to  find  his 
way  through  a  literary  swamp  which  has  so 
many  misleading  finger-boards  up  as  this  book 
is  furnished  with. 

We  have  now  arrived  at  a  part  of  the  swamp 
where  the  difficulties  and  perplexities  are  go 
ing  to  be  greater  than  any  we  have  yet  met 
with — where,  indeed,  the  finger-boards  are  mul 
titudinous,  and  the  most  of  them  pointing  dil 
igently  in  the  wrong  direction.  We  are  to  be 
told  by  the  biography  why  Shelley  deserted 
his  wife  and  child  and  took  up  with  Cornelia 
Turner  and  Italian.  It  was  not  on  account  of 
Cornelia's  sighs  and  sentimentalities  and  tea 
and  manna  and  late  hours  and  soft  and  sweet 
and  industrious  enticements;  no,  it  was  be 
cause  "  his  happiness  in  his  home  had  been 
wounded  and  bruised  almost  to  death." 


48  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

It  had  been  wounded  and  bruised  almost  to 
death  in  this  way  : 

ist.  Harriet  persuaded  him  to  set  up  a  car 
riage. 

2d.  After  the  intrusion  of  the  baby,  Harriet 
stopped  reading  aloud  and  studying. 

3d.  Harriet's  walks  with  Ho'gg  "  commonly 
conducted  us  to  some  fashionable  bonnet- 
shop." 

4th.  Harriet  hired  a  wet-nurse. 

5th.  When  an  operation  was  being  per 
formed  upon  the  baby,  "  Harriet  stood  by,  nar 
rowly  observing  all  that  was  done,  but,  to  the 
astonishment  of  the  operator,  betraying  not 
the  smallest  sign  of  emotion." 

6th.  Eliza  Westbrook,  sister-in-law,  was  still 
of  the  household. 

The  evidence  against  Harriet  Shelley  is  all 
in ;  there  is  no  more.  Upon  these  six  counts 
she  stands  indicted  of  the  crime  of  driving  her 
husband  into  that  sty  at  Bracknell ;  and  this 
crime,  by  these  helps,  the  biographical  prose 
cuting  attorney  has  set  himself  the  task  of 
proving  upon  her. 

Does  the  biographer  call  himself  the  attor 
ney  for  the  prosecution?  No,  only  to  him 
self,  privately ;  publicly  he  is  the  passionless, 
disinterested,  impartial  judge  on  the  bench. 


IN  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY      49 

He  holds  up  his  judicial  scales  before  the 
world,  that  all  may  see ;  and  it  all  tries  to 
look  so  fair  that  a  blind  person  would  some 
times  fail  to  see  him  slip  the  false  weights  in. 

Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home  had  been 
wounded  and  bruised  almost  to  death,  first, 
because  Harriet  had  persuaded  him  to  set  up 
a  carriage.  I  cannot  discover  that  any  evi 
dence  is  offered  that  she  asked  him  to  set  up 
a  carriage.  Still,  if  she  did,  was  it  a  heavy 
offence?  Was  it  unique?  Other  young  wives 
had  committed  it  before,  others  have  com 
mitted  it  since.  Shelley  had  dearly  loved  her 
in  those  London  days ;  possibly  he  set  up  the 
carnage  gladly  to  please  her;  affectionate 
young  husbands  do  such  things.  When  Shel 
ley  ran  away  with  another  girl,  by-and-by, 
this  girl  persuaded  him  to  pour  the  price  of 
many  carriages  and  many  horses  down  the 
bottomless  well  of  her  father's  debts,  but  this 
impartial  judge  finds  no  fault  with  that.  Once 
she  appeals  to  Shelley  to  raise  money — neces 
sarily  by  borrowing,  there  was  no  other  way— 
to  pay  her  father's  debts  with  at  a  time  when 
Shelley  was  in  danger  of  being  arrested  and 
imprisoned  for  his  own  debts ;  yet  the  good 
judge  finds  no  fault  with  her  even  for  this. 

First   and   last,  Shelley  emptied  into   that 

4 


£0  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

rapacious  mendicant's  lap  a  sum  which  cost 
him — for  he  borrowed  it  at  ruinous  rates — 
from  eighty  to  one  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
But  it  was  Mary  Godwin's  papa,  the  supplica 
tions  were  often  sent  through  Mary,  the  good 
judge  is  Mary's  strenuous  friend,  so  Mary  gets 
no  censures.  On  the  Continent  Mary  rode  in 
her  private  carriage,  built,  as  Shelley  boasts, 
"  by  one  of  the  best  makers  in  Bond  Street/' 
yet  the  good  judge  makes  not  even  a  passing 
comment  on  this  iniquity.  Let  us  throw  out 
Count  No.  I  against  Harriet  Shelley  as  being 
far-fetched  and  frivolous. 

Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home  had  been 
wounded  and  bruised  almost  to  death,  second 
ly,  because  Harriet's  studies  "had  dwindled 
away  to  nothing,  Bysshe  had  ceased  to  express 
any  interest  in  them."  At  what  time  was  this  ? 
It  was  when  Harriet  "  had  fully  recovered  from 
the  fatigue  of  her  first  effort  of  maternity,  .  .  . 
and  was  now  in  full  force,  vigor,  and  effect." 
Very  well,  the  baby  was  born  two  days  before 
the  close  of  June.  It  took  the  mother  a  month 
to  get  back  her  full  force,  vigor,  and  effect ;  this 
brings  us  to  July  2/th  and  the  deadly  Cornelia. 
If  a  wife  of  eighteen  is  studying  with  her  hus 
band  and  he  gets  smitten  with  another  wom 
an,  isn't  he  likely  to  lose  interest  in  his  wife's 


IN    DEFENCE    OF    HARRIET    SHELLEY  51 

studies  for  that  reason,  and  is  not  his  wife's 
interest  in  her  studies  likely  to  languish  for 
the  same  reason  ?  Would  not  the  mere  sight 
of  those  books  of  hers  sharpen  the  pain  that 
is  in  her  heart?  This  sudden  breaking  down 
of  a  mutual  intellectual  interest  of  two  years' 
standing  is  coincident  with  Shelley's  re-en 
counter  with  Cornelia ;  and  we  are  allowed  to 
gather  from  that  time  forth  for  nearly  two 
months  he  did  all  his  studying  in  that  person's 
society.  We  feel  at  liberty  to  rule  out  Count 
No.  2  from  the  indictment  against  Harriet. 

Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home  had  been 
wounded  and  bruised  almost  to  death,  thirdly, 
because  Harriet's  walks  with  Hogg  commonly 
led  to  some  fashionable  bonnet-shop.  I  offer 
no  palliation  ;  I  only  ask  why  the  dispassion 
ate,  impartial  judge  did  not  offer  one  himself 
— merely,  I  mean,  to  offset  his  leniency  in  a 
similar  case  or  two  where  the  girl  who  ran 
away  with  Harriet's  husband  was  the  shopper. 
There  are  several  occasions  where  she  inter 
ested  herself  with  shopping — among  them  be 
ing  walks  which  ended  at  the  bonnet-shop— 
yet  in  none  of  these  cases  does  she  get  a  word 
of  blame  from  the  good  judge,  while  in  one 
of  them  he  covers  the  deed  with  a  justifying 
remark,  she  doing  the  shopping  that  time  to 


52  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

find  easement  for  her  mind,  her  child  having 
died. 

Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home  had  been 
wounded  and  bruised  almost  to  death,  fourth 
ly,  by  the  introduction  there  of  a  wet-nurse. 
The  wet  -  nurse  was  introduced  at  the  time 
of  the  Edinburgh  sojourn,  immediately  after 
Shelley  had  been  enjoying  the  two  months  of 
study  with  Cornelia  which  broke  up  his  wife's 
studies  and  destroyed  his  personal  interest  in 
them.  Why,  by  this  time,  nothing  that  Shel 
ley's  wife  could  do  would  have  been  satisfac 
tory  to  him,  for  he  was  in  love  with  another 
woman,  and  was  never  going  to  be  contented 
again  until  he  got  back  to  her.  If  he  had 
been  still  in  love  with  his  wife  it  is  not  easily 
conceivable  that  he  would  care  much  who 
nursed  the  baby,  provided  the  baby  was  well 
nursed.  Harriet's  jealousy  was  assuredly  voic 
ing  itself  now,  Shelley's  conscience  was  assur 
edly  nagging  him,  pestering  him,  persecuting 
him.  Shelley  needed  excuses  for  his  altered 
attitude  towards  his  wife ;  Providence  pitied 
him  and  sent  the  wet-nurse.  If  Providence 
had  sent  him  a  cotton  doughnut  it  would  have 
answered  just  as  well ;  all  he  wanted  was  some 
thing  to  find  fault  with. 

Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home  had  been 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  53 

wounded  and  bruised  almost  to  death,  fifthly, 
because  Harriet  narrowly  watched  a  surgical 
operation  which  was  being  performed  upon 
her  child,  and,  "to  the  astonishment  of  the 
operator,"  who  was  watching  Harriet  instead 
of  attending  to  his  operation,  she  betrayed 
"  not  the  smallest  sign  of  emotion."  The  au 
thor  of  this  biography  was  not  ashamed  to  set 
down  that  exultant  slander.  He  was  appar 
ently  not  aware  that  it  was  a  small  business 
to  bring  into  his  court  a  witness  whose  name 
he  does  not  know,  and  whose  character  and 
veracity  there  is  none  to  vouch  for,  and  allow 
him  to  strike  this  blow  at  the  mother-heart  of 
this  friendless  girl.  The  biographer  says,  "  We 
may  not  infer  from  this  that  Harriet  did  not 
feel  " — why  put  it  in,  then  ? — "  but  we  learn 
that  those  about  her  could  believe  her  to  be 
hard  and  insensible."  Who  were  those  who 
were  about  her?  Her  husband?  He  hated 
her  now,  because  he  was  in  love  elsewhere. 
Her  sister?  Of  course  that  is  not  charged. 
Peacock?  Peacock  does  not  testify.  The 
wet-nurse?  She  does  not  testify.  If  any 
others  were  there  we  have  no  mention  of 
them.  "  Those  about  her  "  are  reduced  to  one 
person — her  husband.  Who  reports  the  cir 
cumstance?  It  is  Hogg.  Perhaps  he  was 


54  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

there — we  do  not  know.  But  if  he  was,  he 
still  got  his  information  at  second-hand,  as  it 
was  the  operator  who  noticed  Harriet's  lack  of 
emotion,  not  himself.  Hogg  is  not  given  to 
saying  kind  things  when  Harriet  is  his  subject. 
He  may  have  said  them  the  time  that  he  tried 
to  tempt  her  to  soil  her  honor,  but  after  that 
he  mentions  her  usually  with  a  sneer.  "  Among 
those  who  were  about  her"  was  one  witness 
well  equipped  to  silence  all  tongues,  abolish 
all  doubts,  set  our  minds  at  rest ;  one  witness, 
not  called  and  not  callable,  whose  evidence,  if 
we  could  but  get  it,  would  outweigh  the  oaths 
of  whole  battalions  of  hostile  Hoggs  and  name 
less  surgeons — the  baby.  I  wish  we  had  the 
baby's  testimony ;  and  yet  if  we  had  it  it  would 
not  do  us  any  good — a  furtive  conjecture,  a 
sly  insinuation,  a  pious  "if"  or  two,  would  be 
smuggled  in,  here  and  there,  with  a  solemn  air 
of  judicial  investigation,  and  its  positiveness 
would  wilt  into  dubiety. 

The  biographer  says  of  Harriet,  "If  words 
of  tender  affection  and  motherly  pride  prove 
the  reality  of  love,  then  undoubtedly  she  loved 
her  first-born  child."  That  is,  if  mere  empty 
words  can  prove  it,  it  stands  proved — and  in 
this  way,  without  committing  himself,  he  gives 
the  reader  a  chance  to  infer  that  there  isn't 


IN    DEFENCE    OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  55 

any  extant  evidence  but  words,  and  that  he 
doesn't  take  much  stock  in  them.     How  sel 
dom  he  shows  his  hand  !     He  is^always  lurk- 
ing  behind  a  non-committal  "  if  "  or  something 
of  that   kind;    always    gliding    and    dodging 
around,  distributing  colorless  poison  here  and 
there  and  everywhere,  but  always  leaving  him 
self  in  a  position  to  say  that  his  language  will 
be  found  innocuous  if  taken  to  pieces  and  ex 
amined.      He    clearly   exhibits   a  steady   and 
never-relaxing  purpose  to   make  Harriet  the 
scapegoat  for  her  husband's  first  great  sin- 
but  it  is  in  the  general  view  that  this  is  re 
vealed,  not  in  the  details.     His  insidious  liter 
ature  is  like  blue  water ;  you  know  what  it  is 
that  makes  it  blue,  but  you   cannot  produce 
and  verify  any  detail  of  the  cloud  of  micro 
scopic  dust  in  it  that  does  it.     Your  adversary 
can  dip  up  a  glassful  and  show  you  that  it  is 
pure  white  and  you  cannot  deny  it ;  and  ,he 
can  dip  the  lake  dry,  glass  by  glass,  and  show 
that   every  glassful  is  white,  and  prove  it  to 
any  one's  eye — and  yet  that  lake  was  blue  and 
you  can  swear   it.     This   book  is  blue — with 
slander  in  solution. 

Let  the  reader  examine,  for  example,  the 
paragraph  of  comment  which  immediately  fol 
lows  the  letter  containing  Shelley's  self-expos- 


56  HOW   TO    TELL    A    STORY 

ure  which  we  have  been  considering.  This  is 
it.  One  should  inspect  the  individual  sen 
tences  as  they  go  by,  then  pass  them  in  pro 
cession  and  review  the  cake-walk  as  a  whole : 

"  Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home,  as  is  evident  from 
this  pathetic  letter,  had  been  fatally  stricken ;  it  is 
evident,  also,  that  he  knew  where  duty  lay ;  he  felt 
that  his  part  was  to  take  up  his  burden,  silently  and 
sorrowfully,  and  to  bear  it  henceforth  with  the  quiet 
ness  of  despair.  But  we  can  perceive  that  he  scarcely 
possessed  the  strength  and  fortitude  needful  for  suc 
cess  in  such  an  attempt.  And  clearly  Shelley  himself 
was  aware  how  perilous  it  was  to  accept  that  respite 
of  blissful  ease  which  he  enjoyed  in  the  Boinville 
household ;  for  gentle  voices  and  dewy  looks  and 
words  of  sympathy  could  not  fail  to  remind  him  of  an 
ideal  of  tranquillity  or  of  joy  which  could  never  be 
his,  and  which  he  must  henceforth  sternly  exclude 
from  his  imagination." 

That  paragraph  commits  the  author  in  no 
way.  Taken  sentence  by  sentence  it  asserts 
nothing  against  anybody  or  in  favor  of  any 
body,  pleads  for  nobody,  accuses  nobody. 
Taken  detail  by  detail,  it  is  as  innocent  as 
moonshine.  And  yet,  taken  as  a  whole,  it  is 
a  design  against  the  reader ;  its  intent  is  to 
remove  the  feeling  which  the  letter  must  leave 
with  him  if  let  alone,  and  put  a  different  one 
in  its  place — to  remove  a  feeling  justified  by 


IN  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY      57 

the  letter  and  substitute  one  not  justified  by 
it.  The  letter  itself  gives  you  no  uncertain 
picture  —  no  lecturer  is  needed  to  stand  by 
with  a  stick  and  point  out  its  details  and  let 
on  to  explain  what  they  mean.  The  picture 
is  the  very  clear  and  remorsefully  faithful 
picture  of  a  fallen  and  fettered  angel  who  is 
ashamed  of  himself ;  an  angel  who  beats  his 
soiled  wings  and  cries,  who  complains  to  the 
woman  who  enticed  him  that  he  could  have 
borne  his  wayward  lot,  he  could  have  stood  by 
his  duty  if  it  had  not  been  for  her  beguile- 
ments ;  an  angel  who  rails  at  the  "  boundless 
ocean  of  abhorred  society,"  and  rages  at  his 
poor  judicious  sister-in-law.  If  there  is  any 
dignity  about  this  spectacle  it  will  escape  most 
people. 

Yet  when  the  paragraph  of  comment  is 
taken  as  a  whole,  the  picture  is  full  of  dignity 
and  pathos ;  we  have  before  us  a  blameless 
and  noble  spirit  stricken  to  the  earth  by  ma 
lign  powers,  but  not  conquered  ;  tempted,  but 
grandly  putting  the  temptation  away ;  en 
meshed  by  subtle  coils,  but  sternly  resolved  to 
rend  them  and  march  forth  victorious,  at  any 
peril  of  life  or  limb.  Curtain — slow  music. 

Was  it  the  purpose  of  the  paragraph  to  take 
the  bad  taste  of  Shelley's  letter  out  of  the  read- 


58  HOW  TO   TELL   A    STORY 

er's  mouth?  If  that  was  not  it,  good  ink  was 
wasted  ;  without  that,  it  has  no  relevancy — 
the  multiplication  table  would  have  padded 
the  space  as  rationally. 

We  have  inspected  the  six  reasons  which  we 
are  asked  to  believe  drove  a  man  of  conspicu 
ous  patience,  honor,  justice,  fairness,  kindliness, 
and  iron  firmness,  resolution,  and  steadfastness, 
from  the  wife  whom  he  loved  and  who  loved 
him,  to  a  refuge  in  the  mephitic  paradise 
of  Bracknell.  These  are  six  infinitely  little 
reasons ;  but  there  were  six  colossal  ones, 
and  these  the  counsel  for  the  destruction  of 
Harriet  Shelley  persists  in  not  considering 
very  important. 

Moreover,  the  colossal  six  preceded  the  lit 
tle  six,  and  had  done  the  mischief  before  they 
were  born.  Let  us  double-column  the  twelve  ; 
then  we  shall  see  at  a  glance  that  each  little 
reason  is  in  turn  answered  by  a  retorting  reason 
of  a  size  to  overshadow  it  and  make  it  insig 
nificant  : 

1.  Harriet  sets  up  carriage.  I.  CORNELIA  TURNER. 

2.  Harriet  stops  studying.  2.  CORNELIA  TURNER. 

3.  Harriet  goes  to  bonnet-shop.  3.  CORNELIA  TURNER. 

4.  Harriet  takes  a  wet-nurse.  4.  CORNELIA  TURNER. 

5.  Harriet  has  too  much  nerve.  5.  CORNELIA  TURNER. 

6.  Detested  sister-in-law.  6.  CORNELIA  TURNER. 


IN  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY      59 

As  soon  as  we  comprehend  that  Cornelia 
Turner  and  the  Italian  lessons  happened  before 
the  little  six  had  been  discovered  to  be  griev 
ances,  we  understand  why  Shelley's  happiness 
in  his  home  had  been  wounded  and  bruised 
almost  to  death,  and  no  one  can  persuade  us 
into  laying  it  on  Harriet.  Shelley  and  Cor 
nelia  are  the  responsible  persons,  and  we  can 
not  in  honor  and  decency  allow  the  cruelties 
which  they  practised  upon  the  unoffending 
wife  to  be  pushed  aside  in  order  to  give  us  a 
chance  to  waste  time  and  tears  over  six  sen 
timental  justifications  of  an  offence  which  the 
six  can't  justify,  nor  even  respectably  assist 
in  justifying. 

Six  ?  There  were  seven  ;  but  in  charity  to 
the  biographer  the  seventh  ought  not  to  be 
exposed.  Still,  he  hung  it  out  himself,  and 
not  only  hung  it  out,  but  thought  it  was  a 
good  point  in  Shelley's  favor.  For  two  years 
Shelley  found  sympathy  and  intellectual  food 
and  all  that  at  home ;  there  was  enough  for 
spiritual  and  mental  support,  but  not  enough 
for  luxury ;  and  so,  at  the  end  of  the  con 
tented  two  years,  this  latter  detail  justifies  him 
in  going  bag  and  baggage  over  to  Cornelia 
Turner  and  supplying  the  rest  of  his  need  in 
the  way  of  surplus  sympathy  and  intellectual 


60  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

pie  unlawfully.  By  the  same  reasoning  a  man 
in  merely  comfortable  circumstances  may  rob 
a  bank  without  sin. 


Ill 


IT  is  1814,  it  is  the  i6th  of  March,  Shelley 
has  written  his  letter,  he  has  been  in  the  Boin- 
ville  paradise  a  month,  his  deserted  wife  is  in 
her  husbandless  home.  Mischief  had  been 
wrought.  It  is  the  biographer  who  concedes 
this.  We  greatly  need  some  light  on  Harriet's 
side  of  the  case  now ;  we  need  to  know  how 
she  enjoyed  the  month,  but  there  is  no  way 
to  inform  ourselves ;  there  seems  to  be  a 
strange  absence  of  documents  and  letters  and 
diaries  on  that  side.  Shelley  kept  a  diary, 
the  approaching  Mary  Godwin  kept  a  diary, 
her  father  kept  one,  her  half-sister  by  marriage, 
adoption,  and  the  dispensation  of  God  kept 
one,  and  the  entire  tribe  and  all  its  friends 
wrote  and  received  letters,  and  the  letters  were 
kept  and  are  producible  when  this  biography 
needs  them  ;  but  there  are  only  three  or  four 
scraps  of  Harriet's  writing,  and  no  diary.  Har 
riet  wrote  plenty  of  letters  to  her  husband — 
nobody  knows  where  they  are,  I  suppose ;  she 


IN  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY      6 1 

wrote  plenty  of  letters  to  other  people — ap 
parently  they  have  disappeared,  too.  Peacock 
says  she  wrote  good  letters,  but  apparently  in 
terested  people  had  sagacity  enough  to  mislay 
them  in  time.  After  all  her  industry  she  went 
down  into  her  grave  and  lies  silent  there — si 
lent,  when  she  has  so  much  need  to  speak. 
We  can  only  wonder  at  this  mystery,  not  ac 
count  for  it. 

No,  there  is  no  way  of  finding  out  what 
Harriet's  state  of  feeling  was  during  the 
month  that  Shelley  was  disporting  himself  in 
the  Bracknell  paradise.  We  have  to  fall  back 
upon  conjecture,  as  our  fabulist  does  when  he 
has  nothing  more  substantial  to  work  with. 
Then  we  easily  conjecture  that  as  the  days 
dragged  by  Harriet's  heart  grew  heavier  and 
heavier  under  its  two  burdens — shame  and  re 
sentment  :  the  shame  of  being  pointed  at  and 
gossiped  about  as  a  deserted  wife,  and  resent 
ment  against  the  woman  who  had  beguiled 
her  husband  from  her  and  now  kept  him  in  a 
disreputable  captivity.  Deserted  wives  —  de 
serted  whether  for  cause  or  without  cause — find 
small  charity  among  the  virtuous  and  the  dis 
creet.  We  conjecture  that  one  after  another 
the  neighbors  ceased  to  call ;  that  one  after 
another  they  got  to  being  "  engaged  "  when 


62  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

Harriet  called;  that  finally  they  one  after  the 
other  cut  her  dead  on  the  street ;  that  after 
that  she  stayed  in  the  house  daytimes,  and 
brooded  over  her  sorrows,  and  night-times  did 
the  same,  there  being  nothing  else  to  do  with 
the  heavy  hours  and  the  silence  and  solitude 
and  the  dreary  intervals  which  sleep  should 
have  charitably  bridged,  but  didn't. 

Yes,  mischief  had  been  wrought.  The  bi 
ographer  arrives  at  this  conclusion,  and  it  is  a 
most  just  one.  Then,  just  as  you  begin  to 
half  hope  he  is  going  to  discover  the  cause  of 
it  and  launch  hot  bolts  of  wrath  at  the  guilty 
manufacturers  of  it,  you  have  to  turn  away 
disappointed.  You  are  disappointed,  and  you 
sigh.  This  is  what  he  says  —  the  italics  are 
mine: 

"  However  the  mischief  may  have  been  wrought — 
and  at  this  day  no  one  can  wish  to  heap  blame  on  any 
buried  head — " 

So  it  is  poor  Harriet,  after  all.  Stern  jus 
tice  must  take  its  course  —  justice  tempered 
with  delicacy,  justice  tempered  with  compas 
sion,  justice  that  pities  a  forlorn  dead  girl  and 
refuses  to  strike  her.  Except  in  the  back. 
Will  not  be  ignoble  and  say  the  harsh  thing, 
but  only  insinuate  it.  Stern  justice  knows 


IN    DEFENCE    OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  63 

about  the  carriage  and  the  wet-nurse  and  the 
bonnet -shop  and  the  other  dark  things  that 
caused  this  sad  mischief,  and  may  not,  must 
not  blink  them;  so  it  delivers  judgment  where 
judgment  belongs,  but  softens  the  blow  by  not 
seeming  to  deliver  judgment  at  all.  To  re 
sume — the  italics  are  mine  : 

"  However  the  mischief  may  have  been  wrought — 
and  at  this  day  no  one  can  wish  to  heap  blame  on  any 
buried  head — //  z's  certain  that  some  cause  or  causes 
of  deep  division  between  Shelley  and  his  wife  were  111 
operation  during  tJie  early  part  of  the  year  1814." 

This  shows  penetration.  No  deduction 
could  be  more  accurate  than  this.  There  were 
indeed  some  causes  of  deep  division.  But 
next  comes  another  disappointing  sentence : 

"To  guess  at  the  precise  nature  of  these  causes, 
in  the  absence  of  definite  statement,  were  useless." 

Why,  he  has  already  been  guessing  at  them 
for  several  pages,  and  we  have  been  trying  to 
outguess  him,  and  now  all  of  a  sudden  he  is 
tired  of  it  and  won't  play  any  more.  It  is  not 
quite  fair  to  us.  However,  he  will  get  over 
this  by-and-by,  when  Shelley  commits  his  next 
indiscretion  and  has  to  be  guessed  out  of  it  at 
Harriet's  expense. 


64  HOW   TO    TELL   A    STORY 

"  We  may  rest  content  with  Shelley's  own 
words  " — in  a  Chancery  paper  drawn  up  by 
him  three  years  later.  They  were  these: 
"  Delicacy  forbids  me  to  say  more  than  that 
we  were  disunited  by  incurable  dissensions." 

As  for  me,  I  do  not  quite  see  why  we  should 
rest  content  with  anything  of  the  sort.  It  is 
not  a  very  definite  statement.  It  does  not 
necessarily  mean  anything  more  than  that  he 
did  not  wish  to  go  into  the  tedious  details  of 
those  family  quarrels.  Delicacy  could  quite 
properly  excuse  him  from  saying,  "  I  was  in 
love  with  Cornelia  all  that  time  ;  my  wife  kept 
crying  and  worrying  about  it  and  upbraiding 
me  and  begging  me  to  cut  myself  free  from  a 
connection  which  was  wronging  her  and  dis 
gracing  us  both ;  and  I  being  stung  by  these 
reproaches  retorted  with  fierce  and  bitter 
speeches — for  it  is  my  nature  to  do  that  when 
I  am  stirred,  especially  if  the  target  of  them 
is  a  person  whom  I  had  greatly  loved  and  re 
spected  before,  as  witness  my  various  attitudes 
towards  Miss  Hitchener,  the  Gisbornes,  Har 
riet's  sister,  and  others — and  finally  I  did  not 
improve  this  state  of  things  when  I  deserted 
my  wife  and  spent  a  whole  month  with  the 
woman  who  had  infatuated  me." 

No,  he  could  not  go  into  those  details,  and 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  65 

we  excuse  him ;  but,  nevertheless,  we  do  not 
rest  content  with  this  bland  proposition  to 
puff  away  that  whole  long  disreputable  episode 
with  a  single  meaningless  remark  of  Shelley's. 

We  do  admit  that  "  it  is  certain  that  some 
cause  or  causes  of  deep  division  were  in  oper 
ation."  We  would  admit  it  just  the  same  if 
the  grammar  of  the  statement  were  as  straight 
as  a  string,  for  we  drift  into  pretty  indifferent 
grammar  ourselves  when  we  are  absorbed  in 
historical  work ;  but  we  have  to  decline  to 
admit  that  we  cannot  guess  those  cause  or 
causes. 

But  guessing  is  not  really  necessary.  There 
is  evidence  attainable — evidence  from  the  batch 
discredited  by  the  biographer  and  set  out  at 
the  back  door  in  his  appendix  -  basket ;  and 
yet  a  court  of  law  would  think  twice  before 
throwing  it  out,  whereas  it  would  be  a  hardy 
person  who  would  venture  to  offer  in  such  a 
place  a  good  part  of  the  material  which  is 
placed  before  the  readers  of  this  book  as  "  evi 
dence,"  and  so  treated  by  this  daring  biogra 
pher.  Among  some  letters  (in  the  appendix- 
basket)  from  Mrs.  Godwin,  detailing  the  God- 
winian  share  in  the  Shelleyan  events  of  1814, 
she  tells  how  Harriet  Shelley  came  to  her  and 
her  husband,  agitated  and  weeping,  to  implore 

5 


66  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

them  to  forbid  Shelley  the  house,  and  prevent 
his  seeing  Mary  Godwin. 

"  She  related  that  last  November  he  had  fallen  in 
love  with  Mrs.  Turner  and  paid  her  such  marked  at 
tentions  Mr.  Turner,  the  husband,  had  carried  off  his 
wife  to  Devonshire." 

The  biographer  finds  a  technical  fault  in 
this ;  "  the  Shelleys  were  in  Edinburgh  in  No 
vember."  What  of  that?  The  woman  is  re 
calling  a  conversation  which  is  more  than  two 
months  old ;  besides,  she  was  probably  more 
intent  upon  the  central  and  important  fact  of 
it  than  upon  its  unimportant  date.  Harriet's 
quoted  statement  has  some  sense  in  it ;  for 
that  reason,  if  for  no  other,  it  ought  to  have 
been  put  in  the  body  of  the  book.  Still,  that 
would  not  have  answered ;  even  the  biogra 
pher's  enemy  could  not  be  cruel  enough  to 
ask  him  to  let  this  real  grievance,  this  com 
pact  and  substantial  and  picturesque  figure, 
this  rawhead-and-bloody-bones,  come  striding 
in  there  among  those  pale  shams,  those  rickety 
spectres  labelled  WET-NURSE,  BONNET-SHOP, 
and  so  on — no,  the  father  of  all  malice  could 
not  ask  the  biographer  to  expose  his  pathetic 
goblins  to  a  competition  like  that. 

The  fabulist  finds  fault  with  the  statement 


IN  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY      67 

because  it  has  a  technical  error  in  it ;  and  he 
does  this  at  the  moment  that  he  is  furnishing 
us  an  error  himself,  and  of  a  graver  sort.  He 
says: 

"If  Turner  carried  off  his  wife  to  Devonshire  he 
brought  her  back,  and  Shelley  was  staying  with  her 
and  her  mother  on  terms  of  cordial  intimacy  in  March, 
1814." 

We  accept  the  "cordial  intimacy" — it  was 
the  very  thing  Harriet  was  complaining  of— 
but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  it  was  Tur 
ner  who  brought  his  wife  back.  The  statement 
is  thrown  in  as  if  it  were  not  only  true,  but 
was  proof  that  Turner  was  not  uneasy.  Tur 
ner's  movements  are  proof  of  nothing.  Nothing 
but  a  statement  from  Turner's  mouth  would 
have  any  value  here,  and  he  made  none. 

Six  days  after  writing  his  letter  Shelley  and 
his  wife  were  together  again  for  a  moment — 
to  get  remarried  according  to  the  rites  of  the 
English  Church. 

Within  three  weeks  the  new  husband  and 
wife  were  apart  again,  and  the  former  was  back 
in  his  odorous  paradise.  This  time  it  is  the 
wife  who  does  the  deserting.  She  finds  Cor 
nelia  too  strong  for  her,  probably.  At  any 
rate,  she  goes  away  with  her  baby  and  sister, 
and  we  have  a  playful  fling  at  her  from  good 


68  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

Mrs.  Boinville,  the  "  mysterious  spinner  Mai- 
muna " ;  she  whose  "  face  was  as  a  damsel's 
face,  and  yet  her  hair  was  gray  " ;  she  of  whom 
the  biographer  has  said,  "  Shelley  was  indeed 
caught  in  an  almost  invisible  thread  spun 
around  him,  but  unconsciously,  by  this  subtle 
and  benignant  enchantress."  The  subtle  and 
benignant  enchantress  writes  to  Hogg,  April 
18:  "Shelley  is  again  a  widower;  his  beaute 
ous  half  went  to  town  on  Thursday." 

Then  Shelley  writes  a  poem  —  a  chant  of 
grief  over  the  hard  fate  which  obliges  him  now 
to  leave  his  paradise  and  take  up  with  his  wife 
again.  It  seems  to  intimate  that  the  paradise 
is  cooling  towards  him ;  that  he  is  warned  off 
by  acclamation;  that  he  must  not  even  vent 
ure  to  tempt  with  one  last  tear  his  friend  Cor 
nelia's  ungentle  mood,  for  her  eye  is  glazed 
and  cold  and  dares  not  entreat  her  lover  to 
stay : 

Exhibit  E 

"  Pause   not !  the  time  is  past !     Every  voice  cries 

'  Away !' 
Tempt  not  with  one  last  tear  thy  friend's  ungentle 

mood  ; 

Thy  lover's  eye,  so  glazed  and  cold,  dares  not  en 
treat  thy  stay: 
Duty  and  dereliction  guide  thee  back  to  solitude." 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  69 

Back  to  the  solitude  of  his  now  empty  home, 
that  is ! 

"Away!  away!  to  thy  sad  and  silent  home; 
Pour  bitter  tears  on  its  desolated  hearth." 


But  he  will  have  rest  in  the  grave  by-and- 
by.  Until  that  time  comes,  the  charms  of 
Bracknell  will  remain  in  his  memory,  along 
with  Mrs.  Boinville's  voice  and  Cornelia  Tur 
ner's  smile : 

"Thou  in  the  grave  shalt  rest  —  yet,  till  the  phan 
toms  flee 
Which  that  house  and  hearth  and  garden  made 

dear  to  thee  erewhile, 

Thy  remembrance  and  repentance  and  deep  mus 
ings  are  not  free 

From  the  music  of  two  voices  and  the  light  of 
one  sweet  smile." 

We  cannot  wonder  that  Harriet  could  not 
stand  it.  Any  of  us  would  have  left.  We 
would  not  even  stay  with  a  cat  that  was  in  this 
condition.  Even  the  Boinvilles  could  not  en 
dure  it;  and  so,  as  we  have  seen,  they  gave 
this  one  notice. 

"  Early  in  May,  Shelley  was  in  London.  He  did 
not  yet  despair  of  reconciliation  with  Harriet,  nor 
had  he  ceased  to  love  her." 


70  HOW    TO   TELL   A    STORY 

^  Shelley's  poems  are  a  good  deal  of  trouble 
to  his  biographer.  They  are  constantly  in 
serted  as  "  evidence,"  and  they  make  much 
confusion.  As  soon  as  one  of  them  has  proved 
one  thing,  another  one  follows  and  proves  quite 
a  different  thing.  The  poem  just  quoted  shows 
that  he  was  in  love  with  Cornelia,  but  a  month 
later  he  is  in  love  with  Harriet  again,  and  there 
is  a  poem  to  prove  it. 

"  In  this  piteous  appeal  Shelley  declares  that  he 
has  now  no  grief  but  one — the  grief  of  having  known 
and  lost  his  wife's  love." 

Exhibit  F 

"  Thy  look  of  love  has  power  to  calm 
The  stormiest  passion  of  my  soul." 

But  without  doubt  she  had  been  reserving 
her  looks  of  love  a  good  part  of  the  time  for 
ten  months,  now — ever  since  he  began  to  lav 
ish  his  own  on  Cornelia  Turner  at  the  end  of 
the  previous  July.  He  does  really  seem  to 
have  already  forgotten  Cornelia's  merits  in 
one  brief  month,  for  he  eulogizes  Harriet  in  a 
way  which  rules  all  competition  out : 

"  Thou  only  virtuous,  gentle,  kind, 
Amid  a  world  of  hate." 

He  complains  of  her  hardness,  and  begs  her 


IN   DEFENCE    OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  71 

to  make  the  concession  of  a  "  slight  endur 
ance  " — of  his  waywardness,  perhaps — for  the 
sake  of  "  a  fellow-being's  lasting  weal."  But 
the  main  force  of  his  appeal  is  in  his  closing 
stanza,  and  is  strongly  worded  : 

"  O  trust  for  once  no  erring  guide ! 

Bid  the  remorseless  feeling  flee ; 
Tis  malice,  'tis  revenge,  'tis  pride, 

Tis  anything  but  thee ; 
O  deign  a  nobler  pride  to  prove, 
And  pity  if  thou  canst  not  love." 

This  is  in  May — apparently  towards  the  end 
of  it.  Harriet  and  Shelley  were  correspond 
ing  all  the  time.  Harriet  got  the  poem  — a 
copy  exists  in  her  own  handwriting;  she  be 
ing  the  only  gentle  and  kind  person  amid  a 
world  of  hate,  according  to  Shelley's  own  tes 
timony  in  the  poem,  we  are  permitted  to  think 
that  the  daily  letters  would  presently  have 
melted  that  kind  and  gentle  heart  and  brought 
about  the  reconciliation,  if  there  had  been  time 
— but  there  wasn't :  for  in  a  very  few  days— 
in  fact,  before  the  8th  of  June— Shelley  was  in 
love  with  another  woman  ! 

And  so — perhaps  while  Harriet  was  walking 
the  floor  nights,  trying  to  get  her  poem  by 
heart— her  husband  was  doing  a  fresh  one— 


72  HOW  TO    TELL   A   STORY 

for  the  other  girl — Mary  Wollstonecraft  God 
win — with  sentiments  like  these  in  it : 

Exhibit  G 

"To  spend  years  thus  and  be  rewarded, 
As  thou,  sweet  love,  requited  me 
When  none  were  near. 
.  .  .  thy  lips  did  meet 
Mine  tremblingly;  .  .  . 

"  Gentle  and  good  and  mild  thou  art, 

Nor  can  I  live  if  thou  appear 
Aught  but  thyself.".  .  . 

And  so  on.  "  Before  the  close  of  June  it  was 
known  and  felt  by  Mary  and  Shelley  that  each 
was  inexpressibly  dear  to  the  other."  Yes, 
Shelley  had  found  this  child  of  sixteen  to  his 
liking,  and  had  wooed  and  won  her  in  the 
graveyard.  But  that  is  nothing  ;  it  was  better 
than  wooing  her  in  her  nursery,  at  any  rate, 
where  it  might  have  disturbed  the  other  chil 
dren. 

However,  she  was  a  child  in  years  only. 
From  the  day  that  she  set  her  masculine  grip 
on  Shelley  he  was  to  frisk  no  more.  If  she 
had  occupied  the  only  kind  and  gentle  Har 
riet's  place  in  March  it  would  have  been  a 
thrilling  spectacle  to  see  her  invade  the  Boin- 
ville  rookery  and  read  the  riot  act.  That  holi- 


•  ^  J 

IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  73 

day  of  Shelley's  would  have  been  of  short 
duration,  and  Cornelia's  hair  would  have  been 
as  gray  as  her  mother's  when  the  services  were 
over. 

Hogg  went  to  the  Godwin  residence  in 
Skinner  Street  with  Shelley  on  that  8th  of 
June.  They  passed  through  Godwin's  little 
debt-factory  of  a  book-shop  and  went  up-stairs 
hunting  for  the  proprietor.  Nobody  there. 
Shelley  strode  about  the  room  impatiently, 
making  its  crazy  floor  quake  under  him.  Then 
a  door  "was  partially  and  softly  opened.  A 
thrilling  voice  called,  *  Shelley !'  A  thrilling 
voice  answered,  *  Mary !'  And  he  darted  out 
of  the  room  like  an  arrow  from  the  bow  of  the 
far-shooting  King.  A  very  young  female,  fair 
and  fair-haired,  pale  indeed,  and  with  a  pierc 
ing  look,  wearing  a  frock  of  tartan,  an  unusual 
dress  in  London  at  that  time,  had  called  him 
out  of  the  room." 

This  is  Mary  Godwin,  as  described  by  Hogg. 
The  thrill  of  the  voices  shows  that  the  love  of 
Shelley  and  Mary  was  already  upward  of  a 
fortnight  old  ;  therefore  it  had  been  born  with 
in  the  month  of  May — born  while  Harriet  was 
still  trying  to  get  her  poem  by  heart,  we  think. 
I  must  not  be  asked  how  I  know  so  much 
about  that  thrill ;  it  is  my  secret.  The  biog- 


74  HOW  TO   TELL   A   STORY 

rapher  and  I  have  private  ways  of  finding  out 
things  when  it  is  necessary  to  find  them  out 
and  the  customary  methods  fail. 

Shelley  left  London  that  day,  and  was  gone 
ten  days.  The  biographer  conjectures  that  he 
spent  this  interval  with  Harriet  in  Bath.  It 
would  be  just  like  him.  To  the  end  of  his 
days  he  liked  to  be  in  love  with  two  women  at 
once.  He  was  more  in  love  with  Miss  Hitch- 
ener  when  he  married  Harriet  than  he  was 
with  Harriet,  and  told  the  lady  so  with  simple 
and  unostentatious  candor.  He  was  more  in 
love  with  Cornelia  than  he  was  with  Harriet 
in  the  end  of  1813  and  the  beginning  of  1814, 
yet  he  supplied  both  of  them  with  love  poems 
of  an  equal  temperature  meantime ;  he  loved 
Mary  and  Harriet  in  June,  and  while  getting 
ready  to  run  off  with  the  one,  it  is^conjectured 
that  he  put  in  his  odd  time  trying  to  get  rec 
onciled  to  the  other;  by -and -by,  while  still 
in  love  with  Mary,  he  will  make  love  to  her 
half-sister  by  marriage,  adoption,  and  the  visi 
tation  of  God,  through  the  medium  of  clandes 
tine  letters,  and  she  will  answer  with  letters 
that  are  for  no  eye  but  his  own. 

When  Shelley  encountered  Mary  Godwin 
he  was  looking  around  for  another  paradise. 
He  had  tastes  of  his  own,  and  there  were  feat- 


IN   DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  75 

ures  about  the  Godwin  establishment  that 
strongly  recommended  it.  Godwin  was  an  ad 
vanced  thinker  and  an  able  writer.  One  of 
his  romances  is  still  read,  but  his  philosophical 
works,  once  so  esteemed,  are  out  of  vogue 
now;  their  authority  was  already  declining 
when  Shelley  made  his  acquaintance  —  that 
is,  it  was  declining  with  the  public,  but  not 
with  Shelley.  They  had  been  his  moral  and 
political  Bible,  and  they  were  that  yet.  Shel 
ley  the  infidel  would  himself  have  claimed  to 
be  less  a  work  of  God  than  a  work  of  Godwin. 
Godwin's  philosophies  had  formed  his  mind 
and  interwoven  themselves  into  it  and  become 
a  part  of  its  texture ;  he  regarded  himself  as 
Godwin's  spiritual  son.  Godwin  was  not  with 
out  self-appreciation ;  indeed,  it  may  be  con 
jectured  that  from  his  point  of  view  the  last 
syllable  of  his  name  was  surplusage.  He  lived 
serene  in  his  lofty  world  of  philosophy,  far 
above  the  mean  interests  that  absorbed  smaller 
men,  and  only  came  down  to  the  ground  at 
intervals  to  pass  the  hat  for  alms  to  pay  his 
debts  with,  and  insult  the  man  that  relieved 
him.  Several  of  his  principles  were  out  of  the 
ordinary.  For  example,  he  was  opposed  to 
marriage.  He  was  not  aware  that  his  preach 
ings  from  this  text  were  but  theory  and  wind  ; 


76  HOW   TO    TELL   A    STORY 

he  supposed  he  was  in  earnest  in  imploring 
people  to  live  together  without  marrying,  until 
Shelley  furnished  him  a  working  model  of  his 
scheme  and  a  practical  example  to  analyze,  by 
applying  the  principle  in  his  own  family ;  the 
matter  took  a  different  and  surprising  aspect 
then.  The  late  Matthew  Arnold  said  that  the 
main  defect  in  Shelley's  make-up  was  that  he 
was  destitute  of  the  sense  of  humor.  This 
episode  must  have  escaped  Mr.  Arnold's  at 
tention. 

But  we  have  said  enough  about  the  head  of 
the  new  paradise.  Mrs.  Godwin  is  described 
as  being  in  several  ways  a  terror;  and  even 
when  her  soul  was  in  repose  she  wore  green 
spectacles.  But  I  suspect  that  her  main  un- 
attractiveness  was  born  of  the  fact  that  she 
wrote  the  letters  that  are  out  in  the  appendix- 
basket  in  the  back  yard — letters  which  are 
an  outrage  and  wholly  untrustworthy,  for  they 
say  some  kind  things  about  poor  Harriet  and 
tell  some  disagreeable  truths  about  her  hus 
band  ;  and  these  things  make  the  fabulist  grit 
his  teeth  a  good  deal. 

Next  we  have  Fanny  Godwin  —  a  Godwin 
by  courtesy  only ;  she  was  Mrs.  Godwin's  nat 
ural  daughter  by  a  former  friend.  She  was 
a  sweet  and  winning  girl,  but  she  presently 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  77 

wearied  of  the  Godwin  paradise,  and  poisoned 
herself. 

Last  in  the  list  is  Jane  (or  Claire,  as  she  pre 
ferred  to  call  herself)  Clairmont,  daughter  of 
Mrs.  Godwin  by  a  former  marriage.  She  was 
very  young  and  pretty  and  accommodating, 
and  always  ready  to  do  what  she  could  to 
make  things  pleasant.  After  Shelley  ran  off 
with  her  part -sister  Mary,  she  became  the 
guest  of  the  pair,  and  contributed  a  natural 
child  to  their  nursery — Allegra.  Lord  Byron 
was  the  father. 

We  have  named  the  several  members  and 
advantages  of  the  new  paradise  in  Skinner 
Street,  with  its  crazy  book- shop  underneath. 
Shelley  was  all  right  now,  this  was  a  better 
place  than  the  other;  more  variety  anyway, 
and  more  different  kinds  of  fragrance.  One 
could  turn  out  poetry  here  without  any  trou 
ble  at  all. 

The  way  the  new  love-match  came  about 
was  this:  Shelley  told  Mary  all  his  aggrava 
tions  and  sorrows  and  griefs,  and  about  the 
wet-nurse  and  the  bonnet-shop  and  the  sur 
geon  and  the  carriage,  and  the  sister-in-law 
that  blocked  the  London  game,  and  about 
Cornelia  and  her  mamma,  and  how  they  had 
turned  him  out  of  the  house  after  making  so 


78  HOW   TO    TELL   A    STORY 

much  of  him  ;  and  how  he  had  deserted  Har 
riet  and  then  Harriet  had  deserted  him,  and 
how  the  reconciliation  was  working  along  and 
Harriet  getting  her  poem  by  heart ;  and  still 
he  was  not  happy,  and  Mary  pitied  him,  for 
she  had  had  trouble  herself.  But  I  am  not 
satisfied  with  this.  It  reads  too  much  like 
statistics.  It  lacks  smoothness  and  grace,  and ' 
is  too  earthy  and  business-like.  It  has  the 
sordid  look  of  a  trades-union  procession  out 
on  strike.  That  is  not  the  right  form  for  it. 
The  book  does  it  better ;  we  will  fall  back  on 
the  book  and  have  a  cake-walk : 

"  It  was  easy  to  divine  that  some  restless  grief  pos 
sessed  him  ;  Mary  herself  was  not  unlearned  in  the 
lore  of  pain.  His  generous  zeal  in  her  father's  behalf, 
his  spiritual  sonship  to  Godwin,  his  reverence  for  her 
mother's  memory,  were  guarantees  with  Mary  of  his 
excellence.*  The  new  friends  could  not  lack  subjects 
of  discourse,  and  underneath  their  words  about  Mary's 
mother,  and  '  Political  Justice,'  and  '  Rights  of  Wom 
an,'  were  two  young  hearts,  each  feeling  towards  the 
other,  each  perhaps  unaware,  trembling  in  the  direc 
tion  of  the  other.  The  desire  to  assuage  the  suffer 
ing  of  one  whose  happiness  has  grown  precious  to  us 
may  become  a  hunger  of  the  spirit  as  keen  as  any 

*  What  she  was  after  was  guarantees  of  his  excellence. 
That  he  stood  ready  to  desert  his  wife  and  child  was  one  of 
them,  apparently. 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  79 

other,  and  this  hunger  now  possessed  Mary's  heart ; 
when  her  eyes  rested  unseen  on  Shelley,  it  was  with 
a  look  full  of  the  ardor  of  a  '  soothing  pity.'  " 

Yes,  that  is  better  and  has  more  composure. 
That  is  just  the  way  it  happened.  He  told 
her  about  the  wet-nurse,  she  told  him  about 
political  justice  ;  he  told  her  about  the  dead 
ly  sister-in-law,  she  told  him  about  her  mother; 
he  told  her  about  the  bonnet-shop,  she  mur 
mured  back  about  the  rights  of  woman  ;  then 
he  assuaged  her,  then  she  assuaged  him  ;  then 
he  assuaged  her  some  more,  next  she  assuaged 
him  some  more ;  then  they  both  assuaged  one 
another  simultaneously;  and  so  they  went  on 
by  the  hour  assuaging  and  assuaging  and  as 
suaging,  until  at  last  what  was  the  result? 
They  were  in  love.  It  will  happen  so  every 
time. 

"  He  had  married  a  woman  who,  as  he  now  per 
suaded  himself,  had  never  truly  loved  him,  who  loved 
only  his  fortune  and  his  rank,  and  who  proved  her 
selfishness  by  deserting  him  in  his  misery." 

I  think  that  that  is  not  quite  fair  to  Har 
riet.  We  have  no  certainty  that  she  knew 
Cornelia  had  turned  him  out  of  the  house.  He 
went  back  to  Cornelia,  and  Harriet  may  have 
supposed  that  he  was  as  happy  with  her  as 


8o  HOW   TO   TELL    A    STORY 

ever.  Still,  it  was  judicious  to  begin  to  lay  or 
the  whitewash,  for  Shelley  is  going  to  neec 
many  a  coat  of  it  now,  and  the  sooner  the 
reader  becomes  used  to  the  intrusion  of  the 
brush  the  sooner  he  will  get  reconciled  to  it 
and  stop  fretting  about  it. 

After  Shelley's  (conjectured)  visit  to  Har 
riet  at  Bath — 8th  of  June  to  iSth — "it  seems 
to  have  been  arranged  that  Shelley  should 
henceforth  join  the  Skinner  Street  household 
each  day  at  dinner." 

Nothing  could  be  handier  than  this ;  things 
will  swim  along  now. 

"  Although  now  Shelley  was  coming  to  believe  that 
his  wedded  union  with  Harriet  was  a  thing  of  the 
past,  he  had  not  ceased  to  regard  her  with  affectionate 
consideration  ;  he  wrote  to  her  frequently,  and  kept 
her  informed  of  his  whereabouts." 

We  must  not  get  impatient  over  these  curi 
ous  inharmoniousnesses  and  irreconcilabilities 
in  Shelley's  character.  You  can  see  by  the 
biographer's  attitude  towards  them  that  there 
is  nothing  objectionable  about  them.  Shelley 
was  doing  his  best  to  make  two  adoring  young 
creatures  happy:  he  was  regarding  the  one 
with  affectionate  consideration  by  mail,  and 
he  was  assuaging  the  other  one  at  home. 


IN  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY      8 1 

"  Unhappy  Harriet,  residing  at  Bath,  had  perhaps 
never  desired  that  the  breach  between  herself  and 
her  husband  should  be  irreparable  and  complete." 

I  find  no  fault  with  that  sentence  except 
that  the  "perhaps"  is  not  strictly  warranted. 
It  should  have  been  left  out.  In  support — or 
shall  we  say  extenuation? — of  this  opinion  I 
submit  that  there  is  not  sufficient  evidence  to 
warrant  the  uncertainty  which  it  implies.  The 
only  "evidence  "  offered  that  Harriet  was  hard 
and  proud  and  standing  out  against  a  recon 
ciliation  is  a  poem — the  poem  in  which  Shel 
ley  beseeches  her  to  "  bid  the  remorseless  feel 
ing  flee"  and  "pity"  if  she  "cannot  love." 
We  have  just  that  as  "  evidence,"  and  out  of 
its  meagre  materials  the  biographer  builds  a 
cobhouse  of  conjectures  as  big  as  the  Coli 
seum;  conjectures  which  convince  him,  the 
prosecuting  attorney,  but  ought  to  fall  far 
short  of  convincing  any  fair-minded  jury. 

Shelley's  love-poems  may  be  very  good  evi 
dence,  but  we  know  well  that  they  are  "  good 
for  this  day  and  train  only."  We  are  able  to 
believe  that  they  spoke  the  truth  for  that  one 
day,  but  we  know  by  experience  that  they 
could  not  be  depended  on  to  speak  it  the  next 
That  very  supplication  for  a  rewarming  of 
Harriet's  chilled  love  was  followed  so  sudden- 

6 


82  HOW   TO    TELL   A    STORY 

ly  by  the  poet's  plunge  into  an  adoring  pas 
sion  for  Mary  Godwin  that  if  it  had  been  a 
check  it  would  have  lost  its  value  before  a  lazy 
person  could  have  gotten  to  the  bank  with  it. 
Hardness,  stubbornness,  pride,  vindictiveness 
— these  may  sometimes  reside  in  a  young  wife 
and  mother  of  nineteen,  but  they  are  not 
charged  against  Harriet  Shelley  outside  of 
that  poem,  and  one  has  no  right  to  insert  them 
into  her  character  on  such  shadowy  "  evidence" 
as  that.  Peacock  knew  Harriet  well,  and  she 
has  a  flexible  and  persuadable  look,  as  painted 
by  him : 

"  Her  manners  were  good,  and  her  whole  aspect  and 
demeanor  such  manifest  emanations  of  pure  and  truth 
ful  nature  that  to  be  once  in  her  company  was  to 
know  her  thoroughly.  She  was  fond  of  her  husband, 
and  accommodated  herself  in  every  way  to  his  tastes. 
If  they  mixed  in  society,  she  adorned  it ;  if  they  lived 
in  retirement,  she  was  satisfied ;  if  they  travelled,  she 
enjoyed  the  change  of  scene." 

"  Perhaps  "  she  had  never  desired  that  the 
breach  should  be  irreparable  and  complete. 
The  truth  is,  we  do  not  even  know  that  there 
was  any  breach  at  all  at  this  time.  We  know 
that  the  husband  and  wife  went  before  the 
altar  and  took  a  new  oath  on  the  24th  of 
March  to  love  and  cherish  each  other  until 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  83 

death — and  this  may  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of 
reconciliation  itself,  and  a  wiping  out  of  the 
old  grudges.  Then  Harriet  went  away,  and 
the  sister-in-law  removed  herself  from  her  so 
ciety.  That  was  in  April.  Shelley  wrote  his 
"  appeal  "  in  May,  but  the  corresponding  went 
right  along  afterwards.  We  have  a  right  to 
doubt  that  the  subject  of  it  was  a  "  reconcili 
ation,"  or  that  Harriet  had  any  suspicion  that 
she  needed  to'  be  reconciled  and  that  her  hus 
band  was  trying  to  persuade  her  to  it — as  the 
biographer  has  sought  to  make  us  believe,  with 
his  Coliseum  of  conjectures  built  out  of  a 
waste-basket  of  poetry.  For  we  have  "  evi 
dence  "  now — not  poetry  and  conjecture.  When 
Shelley  had  been  dining  daily  in  the  Skinner 
Street  paradise  fifteen  days  and  continuing  the 
love-match  which  was  already  a  fortnight  old 
twenty-five  days  earlier,  he  forgot  to  write 
Harriet ;  forgot  it  the  next  day  and  the  next. 
During  four  days  Harriet  got  no  letter  from 
him.  Then  her  fright  and  anxiety  rose  to  ex 
pression-heat,  and  she  wrote  a  letter  to  Shel 
ley's  publisher  which  seems  to  reveal  to  us 
that  Shelley's  letters  to  her  had  been  the  cus 
tomary  affectionate  letters  of  husband  to  wife, 
and  had  carried  no  appeals  for  reconciliation 
and  had  not  needed  to : 


84  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

"BATH  (postmark  July  7,  1814). 

"  MY  DEAR  SIR, — You  will  greatly  oblige  me  by  giv 
ing  the  enclosed  to  Mr.  Shelley.  I  would  not  trouble 
you,  but  it  is  now  four  days  since  I  have  heard  from 
him,  which  to  me  is  an  age.  -Will  you  write  by  return 
of  post  and  tell  me  what  has  become  of  him  ?  as  I 
always  fancy  something  dreadful  has  happened  if  I 
do  not  hear  from  him.  If  you  tell  me  that  he  is  well 
I  shall  not  come  to  London,  but  if  I  do  not  hear  from 
you  or  him  I  shall  certainly  come,  as  I  cannot  endure 
this  dreadful  state  of  suspense.  You  are  his  friend 
and  you  can  feel  for  me. 

"  I  remain  yours  truly, 

"  H.  S." 

Even  without  Peacock's  testimony  that  "  her 
whole  aspect  and  demeanor  were  manifest  em 
anations  of  a  pure  and  truthful  nature,"  we 
should  hold  this  to  be  a  truthful  letter,  a  sincere 
letter,  a  loving  letter  ;  it  bears  those  marks  ;  I 
think  it  is  also  the  letter  of  a  person  accus 
tomed  to  receiving  letters  from  her  husband 
frequently,  and  that  they  have  been  of  a  wel 
come  and  satisfactory  sort,  too,  this  long  time 
back  —  ever  since  the  solemn  remarriage  and 
reconciliation  at  the  altar  most  likely. 

The  biographer  follows  Harriet's  letter  with 
a  conjecture.  He  conjectures  that  she  "  would 
now  gladly  have  retraced  her  steps."  Which 
means  that  it  is  proven  that  she  had  steps  to 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  85 

retrace  —  proven  by  the  poem.  Well,  if  the 
poem  is  better  evidence  than  the  letter,  we 
must  let  it  stand  at  that. 

Then  the  biographer  attacks  Harriet  Shel 
ley's  honor — by  authority  of  random  and  un 
verified  gossip  scavengered  from  a  group  of 
people  whose  very  names  make  a  person  shud 
der:  Mary  Godwin,  mistress  to  Shelley;  her 
part-sister,  discarded  mistress  of  Lord  Byron ; 
Godwin,  the  philosophical  tramp,  who  gathers 
his  share  of  it  from  a  shadow — that  is  to  say, 
from  a  person  whom  he  shirks  out  of  naming. 
Yet  the  biographer  dignifies  this  sorry  rub 
bish  with  the  name  of  "  evidence." 

Nothing  remotely  resembling  a  distinct 
charge  from  a  named  person  professing  to 
know  is  offered  among  this  precious  "  evi 
dence." 

1.  "  Shelley  believed"  so  and  so. 

2.  Byron's  discarded  mistress  says  that  Shel 
ley  told  Mary  Godwin  so  and  so,  and  Mary 
told  her. 

3.  "  Shelley  said  "  so  and  so — and  later  "  ad 
mitted  over  and  over  again  that  he  had  been 
in  error." 

4.  The  unspeakable  Godwin  "  wrote  to  Mr. 
Baxter"  that  he  knew  so  and  so  "  from  un 
questionable  authority  "—name  not  furnished. 


86  HOW  TO   TELL   A   STORY 

How  any  man  in  his  right  mind  could  bring 
himself  to  defile  the  grave  of  a  shamefully 
abused  and  defenceless  girl  with  these  base 
less  fabrications,  this  manufactured  filth,  is  in 
conceivable.  How  any  man,  in  his  right  mind 
or  out  of  it,  could  sit  down  and  coldly  try  to  per 
suade  anybody  to  believe  it,  or  listen  patiently 
to  it,  or,  indeed,  do  anything  but  scoff  at  it  and 
deride  it,  is  astonishing. 

The  charge  insinuated  by  these  odious  slan 
ders  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  of  all  offences 
to  prove;  it  is  also  one  which  no  man  has  a 
right  to  mention  even  in  a  whisper  about  any 
woman,  living  or  dead,  unless  he  knows  it  to  be 
true,  and  not  even  then  unless  he  can  also  prove 
it  to  be  true.  There  is  no  justification  for  the 
abomination  of  putting  this  stuff  in  the  book. 

Against  Harriet  Shelley's  good  name  there 
is  not  one  scrap  of  tarnishing  evidence,  and 
not  even  a  scrap  of  evil  gossip,  that  comes 
from  a  source  that  entitles  it  to  a  hearing. 

On  the  credit  side  of  the  account  we  have 
strong  opinions  from  the  people  who  knew  her 
best.  Peacock  says : 

"  I  feel  it  due  to  the  memory  of  Harriet  to  state  my 
most  decided  conviction  that  her  conduct  as  a  wife 
was  as  pure,  as  true,  as  absolutely  faultless,  as  that  of 
any  who  for  such  conduct  are  held  most  in  honor." 


IN    DEFENCE   OF    HARRIET   SHELLEY  87 

Thornton  Hunt,  who  had  picked  and  pub 
lished  slight  flaws  in  Harriet's  character,  says, 
as  regards  this  alleged  large  one : 

"  There  is  not  a  trace  of  evidence  or  a  whisper  of 
scandal  against  her  before  her  voluntary  departure 
from  Shelley." 

Trelawney  says : 

«•  I  v  the  evidence  of  the  lew  friends 

-w  both   Shelley  and  'his  w'fc.-  -YiW&'rilCV 
He  ck,  and  one  of  the  Godwins — that  Har- 

vas  perfectly  innocent  of  all  oifence." 

What  excuse  was  there  for  raking  up  a  par 
cel  of  foul  rumors  from  malicious  and  dis 
credited  sources  and  flinging  them  at  this 
dead  girl's  head?  Her  very  defencelessness 
should  have  been  her  protection.  The  fact 
that  all  letters  to  her  or  about  her,  with  al 
most  every  scrap  of  her  own  writing,  had  been 
diligently  mislaid,  leaving  her  case  destitute  of 
a  voice,  while  every  pen  -  stroke  which  could 
help  her  husband's  side  had  been  as  diligently 
preserved,  should  have  excused  her  from  being 
brought  to  trial.  Her  witnesses  have  all  dis 
appeared,  yet  we  see  her  summoned  in  her 
grave-clothes  to  plead  for  the  life  of  her  char 
acter,  without  the  help  of  an  advocate,  before 
a  disqualified  judge  and  a  packed  jury. 


88  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

Harriet  Shelley  wrote  her  distressed  letter 
on  the  /th  of  July.  On  the  28th  her  husband 
ran  away  with  Mary  Godwin  and  her  part-sis 
ter  Claire  to  the  Continent.  He  deserted  his 
wife  when  her  confinement  was  approaching. 
She  bore  him  a  child  at  the  end  of  November, 
his  mistress  bore  him  another  one  something 
over  two  months  late*-  ^h?  truants  were 
back  in -London  bef. 
occur 

On  one  occasion,  presently,  Sheller 

pressed  for  money  to  support  his  mistress  

that  he  went  to  his  wife  and  got  some  money 
of  his  that  was  in  her  hands — twenty  pounds. 
Yet  the  mistress  was  not  moved  to  gratitude ; 
for  later,  when  the  wife  was  troubled  to  meet 
her  engagements,  the  mistress  makes  this  entry 
in  her  diary : 

"Harriet  sends  her  creditors  here;  nasty  woman. 
Now  we  shall  have  to  change  our  lodgings." 

The  deserted  wife  bore  the  bitterness  and 
obloquy  of  her  situation  two  years  and  a  quar 
ter;  then  she  gave  up,  and  drowned  herself. 
A  month  afterwards  the  body  was  found  in 
the  water.  Three  weeks  later  Shelley  married 
his  mistress. 

I  must  here  be   allowed  to  italicize   a  re- 


UNIV. 

IN  DEFENCE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 
^< 

mark  of  the  biographer's  concerning  Harriet 
Shelley: 

"  That  no  act  of  Shelley  s  during  the  two  years  which 
immediately  preceded  her  death  tended  to  cause  the  rash 
act  which  brought  her  life  to  its  close  seems  certain" 

Yet  her  husband  had  deserted  her  and  her 
children,  and  was  living  with  a  concubine  all 
that  time !  Why  should  a  person  attempt  to 
write  biography  when  the  simplest  facts  have 
no  meaning  to  him?  This  book  is  littered 
with  as  crass  stupidities  as  that  one — deduc 
tions  by  the  page  which  bear  no  discoverable 
kinship  to  their  premises. 

The  biographer  throws  off  that  extraordi 
nary  remark  without  any  perceptible  disturb 
ance  to  his  serenity;  for  he  follows  it  with  a 
sentimental  justification  of  Shelley's  conduct 
which  has  not  a  pang  of  conscience  in  it,  but 
is  silky  and  smooth  and  undulating  and  pious 

a  cake-walk  with  all  the  colored  brethren  at 

their  best.  There  may  be  people  who  can  read 
that  page  and  keep  their  temper,  but  it  is 
doubtful. 

Shelley's  life  has  the  one  indelible  blot  upon 
it,  but  is  otherwise  worshipfully  noble  and 
beautiful.  It  even  stands  out  indestructibly 
gracious  and  lovely  from  the  ruck  of  these  dis- 


9°  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

astrous  pages,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they 
expose  and  establish  his  responsibility  for  his 
forsaken  wife's  pitiful  fate  —  a  responsibility 
which  he  himself  tacitly  admits  in  a  letter  to 
Eliza  Westbrook,  wherein  he  refers  to  his  tak 
ing  up  with  Mary  Godwin  as  an  act  which 
Eliza  "might  excusably  regard  as  the  cause 
of  her  sister's  ruin." 


FENIMORE  COOPER'S  LITERARY  OFFENCES 


FENIMORE  COOPER'S  LITERARY 
OFFENCES 

The  Pathfinder  and  The  Dccrslayer  stand  at  the 
head  of  Cooper's  novels  as  artistic  creations.  There 
are  others  of  his  works  which  contain  parts  as  perfect 
as  are  to  be  found  in  these,  and  scenes  even  more 
thrilling.  Not  one  can  be  compared  with  either  of 
them  as  a  finished  whole. 

The  defects  in  both  of  these  tales  are  compara 
tively  slight.  They  were  pure  works  of  art. — Prof. 
Lounsbury. 

The  five  tales  reveal  an  extraordinary  fulness  of 
invention. 

.  .  .  One  of  the  very  greatest  characters  in  fiction, 
Natty  Bumppo.  .  .  . 

The  craft  of  the  woodsman,  the  tricks  of  the  trap 
per,  all  the  delicate  art  of  the  forest,  were  familiar  to 
Cooper  from  his  youth  up. — Prof.  Brander  Matthews. 

Cooper  is  the  greatest  artist  in  the  domain  of  ro 
mantic  fiction  yet  produced  by  America. —  Wilkte 
Collins. 

IT  seems  to  me  that  it  was  far  from  right 
for  the  Professor  of  English  Literature  in  Yale, 
the  Professor  of  English  Literature  in  Colum- 


94  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

bia,  and  Wilkie  Collins  to  deliver  opinions  on 
Cooper's  literature  without  having  read  some 
of  it.  It  would  have  been  much  more  deco 
rous  to  keep  silent  and  let  persons  talk  who 
have  read  Cooper. 

Cooper's  art  has  some  defects.  In  one  place 
in  Deerslayer,  and  in  the  restricted  space  of 
two-thirds  of  a  page,  Cooper  has  scored  1 14 
offences  against  literary  art  out  of  a  possible 
115.  It  breaks  the  record. 

There  are  nineteen  rules  governing  literary 
art  in  the  domain  of  romantic  fiction — some 
say  twenty- two.  In  Dcerslayer  Cooper  vio 
lated  eighteen  of  them.  These  eighteen  re 
quire  : 

1.  That  a  tale  shall  accomplish  something 
and   arrive   somewhere.     But    the   Deer  slayer 
tale  accomplishes  nothing  and  arrives  in  the 
air. 

2.  They  require  that  the  episodes  of  a  tale 
shall  be  necessary  parts  of  the  tale,  and  shall 
help  to  develop  it.     But  as  the  Deerslayer  tale 
is  not  a  tale,  and  accomplishes  nothing  and 
arrives  nowhere>the  episodes  have  no  rightful 
place  in  the  work,  since  there  was  nothing  for 
them  to  develop. 

3.  They  require  that  the  personages  in  a 
tale  shall  be  alive,  except  in  the  case  of  corpses, 


FENIMORE    COOPER'S    LITERARY    OFFENCES        95 

and  that  always  the  reader  shall  be  able  to  tell 
the  corpses  from  the  others.  But  this  detail 
has  often  been  overlooked  in  the  Dcerslaycr 
tale. 

4.  They  require  that  the   personages  in  a 
tale,  both  dead  and  alive,  shall  exhibit  a  suffi 
cient  excuse  for  being  there.     But  this  detail 
also   has   been  overlooked   in   the  Dccrslayer 
tale. 

5.  They  require  that  when  the  personages 
of  a  tale  deal  in  conversation,  the  talk  shall 
sound  like  human  talk,  and  be  talk  such  as 
human  beings  would  be  likely  to  talk  in  the 
given  circumstances,  and  have  a  discoverable 
meaning,  also  a  discoverable  purpose,  and  a 
show  of  relevancy,  and  remain  in  the  neigh 
borhood  of  the  subject  in  hand,  and  be  inter 
esting  to  the  reader,  and  help  out  the  tale,  and 
stop  when  the  people   cannot   think  of  any 
thing  more  to  say.     But  this  requirement  has 
been  ignored  from  the  beginning  of  the  Deer- 
slayer  tale  to  the  end  of  it. 

6.  They  require  that  when  the  author  de 
scribes  the  character  of  a  personage   in  his 
tale,  the  conduct  and  conversation  of  that  per 
sonage  shall  justify  said  description.     But  this 
law  gets  little  or  no  attention  in  the  Dcerslayer 
tale,  as  Natty  Bumppo's  case  will  amply  prove. 


96  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

7.  They  require  that  when  a  personage  talks 
like  an  illustrated,  gilt-edged,  tree -calf,  hand- 
tooled,  seven -dollar  Friendship's  Offering  in 
the  beginning  of  a  paragraph,  he  shall  not  talk 
like  a  negro  minstrel  in  the  end  of  it.     But 
this  rule  is  flung  down  and  danced  upon  in  the 
Deerslayer  tale. 

8.  They  require  that  crass  stupidities  shall 
not  be  played  upon  the  reader  as  "  the  craft 
of  the  woodsman,  the  delicate  art  of  the  for 
est,"  by  either  the  author  or  the  people  in  the 
tale.     But  this  rule  is  persistently  violated  in 
the  Deerslayer  tale. 

9.  They  require  that  the  personages  of  a 
tale   shall  confine  themselves  to  possibilities 
and  let  miracles  alone ;  or,  if  they  venture  a 
miracle,  the  author  must  so  plausibly  set  it 
forth  as  to  make  it  look  possible  and  reason 
able.     But  these  rules  are  not  respected  in  the 
Deerslayer  tale. 

10.  They  require  that  the  author  shall  make 
the  reader  feel  a  deep  interest  in  the  person 
ages  of  his  tale  and  in  their  fate ;  and  that  he 
shall  make  the  reader  love  the  good  people  in 
the  tale  and  hate  the  bad  ones.    But  the  reader 
of  the  Deerslayer  tale  dislikes  the  good  people 
in  it,  is  indifferent  to  the  others,  and  wishes 
they  would  all  get  drowned  together. 


FENIMORE   COOPER'S    LITERARY   OFFENCES       07 


11.  They  require  that  the  characters  ; 

!  tale  shall  be  so  clearly  defined  that  the  reader 
can  tell  beforehand  what  each  will  Jo  in  a 
given  emergency.  But  in  the  Deer:,layer  tale 
this  rule  is  vacated. 

In  addition  to  these  large  tules  there  are 
some  little  ones.  These  require  that  the  au 
thor  shall 

12.  Say  what  he  is  proposing   to   say,  not 
merely  come  near  it. 

13.  Use    the    right    word,  not    its    second 
cousin. 

14.  Eschew  surplusage. 

15.  Not  omit  necessary  details. 

16.  Avoid  slovenliness  of  form. 

17.  Use  good  grammar. 

1  8.  Employ  a  simple  and  straightforward 
style. 

Even  these  seven  are  coldly  and  persistently 
violated  in  the  Decrslayer  tale. 

Cooper's  gift  in  the  way  of  invention  was 
not  a  rich  endowment  ;  but  such  as  it  was  he 
liked  to  work  it,  he  was  pleased  with  the  ef 
fects,  and  indeed  he  did  some  quite  sweet 
things  with  it.  In  his  little  box  of  stage  prop 
erties  he  kept  six  or  eight  cunning  devices, 
tricks,  artifices  for  his  savages  and  woodsmen 
to  deceive  and  circumvent  each  other  with, 
7 


98  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

ati£?  ^ie  was  never  so  happy  as  when  he  was 
working  these  innocent  things  and  seeing  them 
go.  A  favorite  one  was  to  make  a  moccasined 
person  trcfad  in  the  tracks  of  the  moccasined 
enemy,  and^bhus  hide  his  own  trail.  Cooper 
wore  out  barrels  and  barrels  of  moccasins  in 
working  that  triav  Another  stage-property 
that  he  pulled  out  of  iiis  box  pretty  frequently 
was  his  broken  twig,  t^e  prized  his  broken 
twig  above  all  the  rest  of  his  effects,  and  worked 
it  the  hardest.  It  is  a  restful  chapter  in  any 
book  of  his  when  somebody  doesn't  step  on  a 
dry  twig  and  alarm  all  the  reds  and  whites  for 
two  hundred  yards  around.  Every  time  a 
Cooper  person  is  in  peril,  and  absolute  silence 
is  worth  four  dollars  a  minute,  he  is  sure  to 
step  on  a  dry  twig.  There  may  be  a  hundred 
handier  things  to  step  on,  but  that  wouldn't 
satisfy  Cooper.  Cooper  requires  him  to  turn 
out  and  find  a  dry  twig;  and  if  he  can't  do 
it,  go  and  borrow  one.  In  fact,  the  Leather 
Stocking  Series  ought  to  have  been  called  the 
Broken  Twig  Series. 

I  am  sorry  there  is  not  room  to  put  in  a  few 
dozen  instances  of  the  delicate  art  of  the  for 
est,  as  practised  by  Natty  Bumppo  and  some 
of  the  other  Cooperian  experts.  Perhaps  we 
may  venture  two  or  three  samples.  Cooper 


FENIMORE   COOPER'S    LITERARY   OFFENCES       99 

was  a  sailor— a  naval  officer;  yet  he  gravely 
tells  us  how  a  vessel,  driving  towards  a  lee 
shore  in  a  gale,  is  steered  for  a  particular  spot 
by  her  skipper  because  he  knows  of  an  under 
tow  there  which  will  hold  her  back  against  the 
gale  and  save  her.     For  just  pure  woodcraft, 
or  sailorcraft,  or  whatever  it  is,  isn't  that  neat? 
For  several  years  Cooper  was  daily  in  the  so 
ciety  of  artillery,  and  he  ought  to  have  noticed 
that  when  a  cannon-ball  strikes  the  ground  it 
either  buries  itself  or  skips  a  hundred  feet  or 
so;  skips  again  a  hundred  feet  or  so — and  so 
on,  till  it  finally  gets  tired  and  rolls.     Now  in 
one  place  he  loses  some  "  females  " — as  he  al 
ways  calls  women  —  in  the  edge  of  a  wood 
near  a  plain  at  night  in  a  fog,  on  purpose  to 
give  Bumppo  a  chance  to  show  off  the  deli 
cate  art  of  the  forest  before  the  reader.    These 
mislaid  people  are  hunting  for  a  fort.     They 
hear  a  cannon-blast,  and  a  cannon-ball  present 
ly  comes  rolling  into  the  wood  and  stops  at 
their  feet.     To  the  females  this  suggests  noth 
ing.     The  case  is  very  different  with  the  ad 
mirable  Bumppo.     I  wish  I   may  never  know 
peace  again  if  he  doesn't  strike  out  promptly 
and  follow  the  track  of  that  cannon-ball  across 
the  plain  through  the  dense  fog  and  find  the 
fort.    Isn't  it  a  daisy  ?    If  Cooper  had  any  real 


IOO  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

knowledge  of  Nature's  ways  of  doing  things, 
he  had  a  most  delicate  art  in  concealing  the 
fact.  For  instance:  one  of  his  acute  Indian' 
experts,  Chingachgook  (pronounced  Chicago, 
I  think),  has  lost  the  trail  of  a  person  he  is 
tracking  through  the  forest.  Apparently  that 
trail  is  hopelessly  lost.  Neither  you  nor  I 
could  ever  have  guessed  out  the  way  to  find 
it.  It  was  very  different  with  Chicago.  Chi 
cago  was  not  stumped  for  long.  He  turned  a 
running  stream  out  of  its  course,  and  there, 
in  the  slush  in  its  old  bed,  were  that  person's 
moccasin  -  tracks.  The  current  did  not  wash 
them  away,  as  it  would  have  done  in  all  other 
like  cases — no,  even  the  eternal  laws  of  Nature 
have  to  vacate  when  Cooper  wants  to  put  up 
a  delicate  job  of  woodcraft  on  the  reader. 

We  must  be  a  little  wary  when  Brander 
Matthews  tells  us  that  Cooper's  books  "  reveal 
an  extraordinary  fulness  of  invention."  As 
a  rule,  I  am  quite  willing  to  accept  Brander 
Matthews's  literary  judgments  and  applaud 
his  lucid  and  graceful  phrasing  of  them ;  but 
that  particular  statement  needs  to  be  taken 
with  a  few  tons  of  salt.  Bless  your  heart, 
Cooper  hadn't  any  more  invention  than  a 
horse ;  and  I  don't  mean  a  high-class  horse, 
either;  I  mean  a  clothes-horse.  It  would  be 


FENIMORE   COOPER'S   LVfl'RXkY   Of"FtVCL^     IOi 

very  difficult  to  find  a  really  clever  "situation" 
in  Cooper's  books,  and  still  more  difficult  to 
find  one  of  any  kind  which  he  has  failed  to 
render  absurd  by  his  handling  of  it.  Look  at 
the  episodes  of  "the  caves"  ;  and  at  the  cele 
brated  scuffle  between  Maqua  and  those  oth 
ers  on  the  table-land  a  few  days  later ;  and  at 
Hurry  Harry's  queer  water- transit  from  the 
castle  to  the  ark  ;  and  at  Deerslayer's  half- 
hour  with  his  first  corpse ;  and  at  the  quarrel 
between  Hurry  Harry  and  Deerslayer  later; 
ajid  at — but  choose  for  yourself ;  you  can't  go 
amiss. 

If  Cooper  had  been  an  observer  his  inven 
tive  faculty  would  have  worked  better;  not 
more  interestingly,  but  more  rationally,  more 
plausibly.  Cooper's  proudest  creations  in  the 
way  of  "  situations "  suffer  noticeably  from 
the  absence  of  the  observer's  protecting 
gift.  Cooper's  eye  was  splendidly  inaccurate. 
Cooper  seldom  saw  anything  correctly.  He 
saw  nearly  all  things  as  through  a  glass  eye, 
darkly.  Of  course  a  man  who  cannot  see  the 
commonest  little  every-day  matters  accurately 
is  working  at  a  disadvantage  when  he  is  con 
structing  a  "  situation."  In  the  Deerslayer 
tale  Cooper  has  a  stream  which  is  fifty  feet 
wide  where  it  flows  out  of  a  lake ;  it  presently 


OV  SELL   A   STORY 

narrows  to  twenty  as  it  meanders  along  for  no 
given  reason,  and  yet  when  a  stream  acts  like 
that  it  ought  to  be  required  to  explain  itself. 
Fourteen  pages  later  the  width  of  the  brook's 
outlet  from  the  lake  has  suddenly  shrunk  thirty 
feet,  and  become  "  the  narrowest  part  of  the 
stream."  This  shrinkage  is  not  accounted  for. 
The  stream  has  bends  in  it,  a  sure  indication 
that  it  has  alluvial  banks  and  cuts  them;  yet 
these  bends  are  only  thirty  and  fifty  feet  long. 
If  Cooper  had  been  a  nice  and  punctilious  ob 
server  he  would  have  noticed  that  the  bends 
were  oftener  nine  hundred  feet  long  than  short 
of  it. 

Cooper  made  the  exit  of  that  stream  fifty 
feet  wide,  in  the  first  place,  for  no  particular 
reason  ;  in  the  second  place,  he  narrowed  it  to 
less  than  twenty  to  accommodate  some  Ind 
ians.  He  bends  a  "sapling"  to  the  form  of 
an  arch  over  this  narrow  passage,  and  conceals 
six  Indians  in  its  foliage.  They  are  "  laying  " 
for  a  settler's  scow  or  ark  which  is  coming  up 
the  stream  on  its  way  to  the  lake ;  it  is  being 
hauled  against  the  stiff  current  by  a  rope 
whose  stationary  end  is  anchored  in  the  lake ; 
its  rate  of  progress  cannot  be  more  than  a 
mile  an  hour.  Cooper  describes  the  ark,  but 
pretty  obscurely.  In  the  matter  of  dimen- 


FiNIMORE   COOPER'S    LITERARY   OFFENCES     103 

sions  "  it  was  little  more  than  a  modern  canal- 
boat."     Let  us  guess,  then,  that  it  was  about 
one  hundred  and  forty  feet  long.     It  was  of 
"  greater  breadth  than  common."  Let  us  guess, 
then,  that  it  was  about  sixteen  feet  wide.    This 
leviathan  had  been  prowling  down  bends  which 
were  but  a  third  as  long^is  itself,  and  scraping 
between  banks  where  it  had  only  two  feet  of 
space  to  spare  on  each  side.     We  cannot  too 
much  admire  this  miracle.     A  low-roofed  log 
dwelling   occupies  "two -thirds   of   the  ark's 
length  " — a  dwelling  ninety  feet  long  and  six 
teen  feet  wide,  let  us  say — a  kind  of  vestibule 
train.     The    dwelling   has   two  rooms — each 
forty-five  feet  long  and  sixteen  feet  wide,  let 
us  guess.     One  of  them  is  the  bedroom  of  the 
Hutter  girls,  Judith  and   Hetty;  the  other  is 
the  parlor  in  the  daytime,  at  night  it  is  papa's 
bedchamber.  The  ark  is  arriving  at  the  stream's 
exit  now,  whose  width  has  been  reduced  to 
less  than  twenty  feet  to  accommodate  the  Ind 
ians — say  to  eighteen.    There  is  a  foot  to  spare 
on  each  side  of  the  boat.     Did  the  Indians 
notice   that   there  was  going   to   be    a   tight 
squeeze   there?     Did   they  notice   that   they 
could  make  money  by  climbing  down  out  of 
that  arched  sapling  and  just  stepping  aboard 
when  the  ark  scraped  by?    No  ;  other  Indians 


104  HOW   TO   TELL   A    STORY 

would  have  noticed  these  things,  but  Cooper's 
Indians  never  notice  anything.  Cooper  thinks 
they  are  marvellous  creatures  for  noticing,  but 
he  was  almost  always  in  error  about  his  Ind 
ians.  There  was  seldom  a  sane  one  among 
them. 

The  ark  is  one  hu^lred  and  forty  feet  long ; 
the  dwelling  is  ninety  feet  long.  The  idea  of 
the  Indians  is  to  drop  softly  and  secretly  from 
the  arched  sapling  to  the  dwelling  as  the  ark 
creeps  along  under  it  at  the  rate  of  a  mile  an 
hour,  and  butcher  the  family.  It  will  take  the 
ark  a  minute  and  a  half  to  pass  under.  It  will 
take  the  ninety  foot  dwelling  a  minute  to  pass 
under.  Now,  then,  what  did  the  six  Indians 
do?  It  would  take  you  thirty  years  to  guess, 
and  even  then  you  would  have  to  give  it  up,  I 
believe.  Therefore,  I  will  tell  you  what  the 
Indians  did.  Their  chief,  a  person  of  quite 
extraordinary  intellect  for  a  Cooper  Indian, 
warily  watched  the  canal-boat  as  it  squeezed 
along  under  him,  and  when  he  had  got  his  cal 
culations  fined  down  to  exactly  the  right  shade, 
as  he  judged,  he  let  go  and  dropped.  And 
missed  the  house !  That  is  actually  what  he 
did^  He  missed  the  house,  and  landed  in  the 
stern  of  the  scow.  It  was  not  much  of  a  fall, 
yet  it  knocked  him  silly.  He  lay  there  uncon- 


FENIMORE   COOPER'S    LITERARY   OFFENCES     105 

scious.  If  the  house  had  been  ninety-seven 
feet  long  he  would  have  made  the  trip.  The 
fault  was  Cooper's,  not  his.  The  error  lay  in 
the  construction  of  the  house.  Cooper  was  no 
architect. 

There  still  remained  in  the  roost  five  Ind 
ians.  The  boat  has  passed  under  and  is  now 
out  of  their  reach.  Let  me  explain  what  the 
five  did — you  would  not  be  able  to  reason  it 
out  for  yourself.  No.  I  jumped  for  the  boat, 
but  fell  in  the  water  astern  of  it.  Then  No. 
2  jumped  for  the  boat,  but  fell  in  the  water 
still  farther  astern  of  it.  Then  No.  3  jumped 
for  the  boat,  and  fell  a  good  way  astern  of  it. 
Then  No.  4  jumped  for  the  boat,  and  fell  in  the 
water  aivay  astern.  Then  even  No.  5  made  a 
jump  for  the  boat — for  he  was  a  Cooper  Ind 
ian.  In  the  matter  of  intellect,  the  difference 
between  a  Cooper  Indian  and  the  Indian  that 
stands  in  front  of  the  cigar-shop  is  not  spa 
cious.  The  scow  episode  is  really  a  sublime 
burst  of  invention  ;  but  it  does  not  thrill,  be 
cause  the  inaccuracy  of  the  details  throws  a 
sort  of  air  of  fictitiousness  and  general  improba 
bility  over  it.  This  comes  of  Cooper's  inade 
quacy  as  an  observer. 

The  reader  will  find  some  examples  of  Coop 
er's  high  talent  for  inaccurate  observation  in 


106  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

the  account  of   the   shooting  -  match   in  The 
Pathfinder. 

"  A  common  wrought  nail  was  driven  lightly  into 
the  target,  its  head  having  been  first  touched  with 
paint." 

The  color  of  the  paint  is  not  stated — an  im 
portant  omission,  but  Cooper  deals  freely  in  im 
portant  omissions.  No,  after  all,  it  was  not  an 
important  omission ;  for  this  nail-head  is  a  hun 
dred  yards  from  the  marksmen,  and  could  not  be 
seen  by  them  at  that  distance,  no  matter  what 
its  color  might  be.  How  far  can  the  best  eyes 
see  a  common  house-fly?  A  hundred  yards? 
It  is  quite  impossible.  Very  well;  eyes  that  can 
not  see  a  house-fly  that  is  a  hundred  yards  away 
cannot  see  an  ordinary  nail-head  at  that  dis 
tance,  for  the  size  of  the  two  objects  is  the 
same.  It  takes  a  keen  eye  to  see  a  fly  or  a 
nail-head  at  fifty  yards — one  hundred  and  fifty 
feet.  Can  the  reader  do  it  ? 

The  nail  was  lightly  driven,  its  head  painted, 
and  game  called.  Then  the  Cooper  miracles 
began.  The  bullet  of  the  first  marksman 
chipped  an  edge  of  the  nail-head;  the  next 
man's  bullet  drove  the  nail  a  little  way  into 
the  target — and  removed  all  the  paint.  Haven't 
the  miracles  gone  far  enough  now?  Not  to 


FENIMORE    COOPER'S   LITERARY   OFFENCES     107 

suit  Cooper;  for  the  purpose  of  this  whole 
scheme  is  to  show  off  his  prodigy,  Deerslayer- 
Hawkeye -Long-Rifle -Leather- Stocking- Path- 
finder-Bumppo  before  the  ladies. 

" '  Be  all  ready  to  clench  it,  boys !'  cried  out  Path 
finder,  stepping  into  his  friend's  tracks  the  instant 
they  were  vacant.  '  Never  mind  a  new  nail ;  I  can 
see  that,  though  the  paint  is  gone,  and  what  I  can  see 
I  can  hit  at  a  hundred  yards,  though  it  were  only  a 
mosquito's  eye.  Be  ready  to  clench  !' 

"  The  rifle  cracked,  the  bullet  sped  its  way,  and  the 
head  of  the  nail  was.  buried  in  the  wood,  covered  by 
the  piece  of  flattened  lead." 

There,  you  see,  is  a  man  who  could  hunt 
flies  with  a  rifle,  and  command  a  ducal  salary 
in  a  Wild  West  show  to-day  if  we  had  him 
back  with  us. 

The  recorded  feat  is  certainly  surprising 
just  as  it  stands;  but  it  is  not  surprising 
enough  for  Cooper.  Cooper  adds  a  touch. 
He  has  made  Pathfinder  do  this  miracle  with 
another  man's  rifle ;  and  not  only  that,  but 
Pathfinder  did  not  have  even  the  advantage 
of  loading  it  himself.  He  had  everything 
against  him,  and  yet  he  made  that  impossible 
shot;  and  not  only  made  it, but  did  it  with  ab 
solute  confidence,  saying,  "  Be  ready  to  clench." 
Now  a  person  like  that  would  have  undertaken 


I08  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

that  same  feat  with  a  brickbat,  and  with  Coop 
er  to  help  he  would  have  achieved  it,  too. 

Pathfinder  showed  off  handsomely  that  day 
before  the  ladies.  His  very  first  feat  was  a 
thing  which  no  Wild  West  show  can  touch. 
He  was  standing  with  the  group  of  marksmen, 
observing — a  hundred  yards  from  the  target, 
mind  ;  one  Jasper  raised  his  rifle  and  drove  the 
centre  of  the  bull's-eye.  Then  the  Quarter 
master  fired.  The  target  exhibited  no  result 
this  time.  There  was  a  laugh.  "  It's  a  dead 
miss,"  said  Major  Lundie.  Pathfinder  waited 
an  impressive  moment  or  two ;  then  said,  in 
that  calm,  indifferent,  know-it-all  way  of  his, 
"  No,  Major,  he  has  covered  Jasper's  bullet, 
as  will  be  seen  if  any  one  will  take  the  trouble 
to  examine  the  target." 

Wasn't  it  remarkable !  How  could  he  see 
that  little  pellet  fly  through  the  air  and  enter 
that  distant  bullet-hole?  Yet  that  is  what  he 
did  ;  for  nothing  is  impossible  to  a  Cooper 
person.  Did  any  of  those  people  have  any 
deep-seated  doubts  about  this  thing?  No; 
for  that  would  imply  sanity,  and  these  were 
all  Cooper  people. 

"The  respect  for  Pathfinder's  skill  and  for  his  quick 
ness  and  accuracy  of  sight "  (the  italics  are  mine)  "  was 
so  profound  and  general,  that  the  instant  he  made  this 


FENIMORE   COOPER'S    LITERARY    OFFENCES     109 

declaration  the  spectators  began  to  distrust  their  own 
opinions,  and  a  dozen  rushed  to  the  target  in  order  to 
ascertain  the  fact.  There,  sure  enough,  it  was  found 
that  the  Quartermaster's  bullet  had  gone  through  the 
hole  made  by  Jasper's,  and  that,  too,  so  accurately  as 
to  require  a  minute  examination  to  be  certain  of  the 
circumstance,  which,  however,  was  soon  clearly  estab 
lished  by  discovering  one  bullet  over  the  other  in  the 
stump  against  which  the  target  was  placed." 

They  made  a  "  minute"  examination  ;  but 
never  mind,  how  could  they  know  that  there 
were  two  bullets  in  that  hole  without  digging 
the  latest  one  out  ?  for  neither  probe  nor  eye 
sight  could  prove  the  presence  of  any  more 
than  one  bullet.  Did  they  dig?  No;  as  we 
shall  see.  It  is  the  Pathfinder's  turn  now  ;  he 
steps  out  before  the  ladies,  takes  aim,  and 
fires. 

But,  alas !  here  is  a  disappointment ;   an  in 
credible,  an    unimaginable   disappointment  — 
for  the  target's  aspect  is  unchanged  ;  there  is 
nothing  there  but  that  same  old  bullet-hole ! 

" '  If  one  dared  to  hint  at  such  a  thing,'  cried  Major 
Duncan, '  I  should  say  that  the  Pathfinder  has  also 
missed  the  target !'  " 

As  nobody  had  missed  it  yet,  the  "  also  " 
was  not  necessary;  but  never  mind  about 
that,  for  the  Pathfinder  is  going  to  speak. 


110  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

"'No,  no,  Major,'  said  he,  confidently, '  that  would 
be  a  risky  declaration.  I  didn't  load  the  piece,  and 
can't  say  what  was  in  it ;  but  if  it  was  lead,  you  will 
find  the  bullet  driving  down  those  of  the  Quarter 
master  and  Jasper,  else  is  not  my  name  Pathfinder.' 

"  A  shout  from  the  target  announced  the  truth  of 
this  assertion." 

Is  the  miracle  sufficient  as  it  stands?  Not 
for  Cooper.  The  Pathfinder  speaks  again,  as 
he  "  now  slowly  advances  towards  the  stage 
occupied  by  the  females": 

" '  That's  not  all,  boys,  that's  not  all ;  if  you  find  the 
target  touched  at  all,  I'll  own  to  a  miss.  The  Quar 
termaster  cut  the  wood,  but  you'll  find  no  wood  cut 
by  that  last  messenger.' " 

The  miracle  is  at  last  complete.  He  knew 
— doubtless  saw — at  the  distance  of  a  hundred 
yards  —  that  his  bullet  had  passed  into  the 
hole  without  fraying  the  edges.  There  were 
now  three  bullets  in  that  one  hole — three  bul 
lets  embedded  processionally  in  the  body  of 
the  stump  back  of  the  target.  Everybody 
knew  this — somehow  or  other — and  yet  no 
body  had  dug  any  of  them  out  to  make  sure. 
Cooper  is  not  a  close  observer,  but  he  is  inter 
esting.  He  is  certainly  always  that,  no  mat 
ter  what  happens.  And  he  is  more  interesting 


FENIMORE   COOPER'S    LITERARY   OFFENCES     III 

when  he  is  not  noticing  what  he  is  about  than 
when  he  is.  This  is  a  considerable  merit. 

The  conversations  in  the  Cooper  books  have 
a  curious  sound  in  our  modern  ears.  To  be 
lieve  that  such  talk  really  ever  came  out  of 
people's  mouths  would  be  to  believe  that 
there  was  a  time  when  time  was  of  no  value 
to  a  person  who  thought  he  had  something 
to  say ;  when  it  was  the  custom  to  spread  a 
two-minute  remark  out  to  ten  ;  when  a  man's 
mouth  was  a  rolling-mill,  and  busied  itself  all 
day  long  in  turning  four-foot  pigs  of  thought 
into  thirty-foot  bars  of  conversational  railroad 
iron  by  attenuation  ;  when  subjects  were  sel 
dom  faithfully  stuck  to,  but  the  talk  wandered 
all  around  and  arrived  nowhere;  when  conver 
sations  consisted  mainly  of  irrelevances,  with 
here  and  there  a  relevancy,  a  relevancy  with 
an  embarrassed  look,  as  not  being  able  to  ex 
plain  how  it  got  there. 

Cooper  was  certainly  not  a  master  in  the 
construction  of  dialogue.  Inaccurate  observa 
tion  defeated  him  here  as  it  defeated  him  in 
so  many  other  enterprises  of  his.  He  even 
failed  to  notice  that  the  man  who  talks  cor 
rupt  English  six  days  in  the  week  must  and 
will  talk  it  on  the  seventh,  and  can't  help  him 
self.  In  the  Deer  slayer  story  he  lets  Deer- 


112  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

slayer  talk  the  showiest  kind  of  book  talk 
sometimes,  and  at  other  times  the  basest  of 
base  dialects.  For  instance,  when  some  one 
asks  him  if  he  has  a  sweetheart,  and  if  so, 
where  she  abides,  this  is  his  majestic  answer : 

" '  She's  in  the  forest — hanging  from  the  boughs  of 
the  trees,  in  a  soft  rain  —  in  the  dew  on  the  open 
grass — the  clouds  that  float  about  in  the  blue  heavens 
— the  birds  that  sing  in  the  woods — the  sweet  springs 
where  I  slake  ray  thirst — and  in  all  the  other  glorious 
gifts  that  come  from  God's  Providence  !'  " 

And  he  preceded  that,  a  little  before,  with 
this: 

" '  It  consarns  me  as  all  things  that  touches  a  fri'nd 
consarns  a  fri'nd.' " 

And  this  is  another  of  his  remarks : 

"'If  I  was  Injin  born,  now,  I  might  tell  of  this,  or 
carry  in  the  scalp  and  boast  of  the  expl'ite  afore  the 
whole  tribe;  or  if  my  inimy  had  only  been  a  bear'" — 
and  so  on. 

We  cannot  imagine  such  a  thing  as  a  vet 
eran  Scotch  Commander-in-Chief  comporting 
himself  in  the  field  like  a  windy  melodramatic 
actor,  but  Cooper  could.  On  one  occasion 
Alice  and  Cora  were  being  chased  by  the 
French  through  a  fog  in  the  neighborhood  of 
their  father's  fort : 


FENIMORE    COOPER'S   LITERARY   OFFENCES     113 

"'Point  de  quarticr  aux  coquins  !'  cried  an  eager 
pursuer,  who  seemed  to  direct  the  operations  of  the 
enemy. 

"  '  Stand  firm  and  be  ready,  my  gallant  6oths  !'  sud 
denly  exclaimed  a  voice  above  them  ;  '  wait  to  see  the 
enemy  ;  fire  low,  and  sweep  the  glacis.' 

'"Father!  father !' exclaimed  a  piercing  cry  from 
out  the  mist ;  '  it  is  I !  Alice  !  thy  own  Elsie !  spare, 
O  !  save  your  daughters  !' 

" '  Hold !'  shouted  the  former  speaker,  in  the  awful 
tones  of  parental  agony,  the  sound  reaching  even  to 
the  woods,  and  rolling  back  in  solemn  echo.  '  Tis 
she !  God  has  restored  me  my  children  !  Throw  open 
the  sally-port;  to  the  field,  6oths,  to  the  field;  pull 
not  a  trigger,  lest  ye  kill  my  lambs !  Drive  off  these 
dogs  of  France  with  your  steel.'  " 

Cooper's  word -sense  was  singularly  dull. 
When  a  person  has  a  poor  ear  for  music  he 
will  flat  and  sharp  right  along  without  know 
ing  it.  He  keeps  near  the  tune,  but  it  is  not 
the  tune.  When  a  person  has  a  poor  ear  for 
words,  the  result  is  a  literary  flatting  and 
sharping ;  you  perceive  what  he  is  intending 
to  say,  but  you  also  perceive  that  he  doesn't 
say  it.  This  is  Cooper.  He  was  not  a  word- 
musician.  His  ear  was  satisfied  with  the  ap 
proximate  word.  I  will  furnish  some  circum 
stantial  evidence  in  support  of  this  charge. 
My  instances  are  gathered  from  half  a  dozen 
s 


114  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

pages  of  the  tale  called  Deerslayer.  He  uses 
"  verbal,"  for  "  oral  "  ;  "  precision,"  for  "  facili 
ty  " ;  "  phenomena,"  for  "  marvels  " ;  "  necessa 
ry,"  for  "  predetermined  "  ;  "  unsophisticated," 
for  "  primitive  "  ;  "  preparation,"  for  "  expect 
ancy  "  ;  "  rebuked,"  for  "  subdued  "  ;  "  depend 
ant  on,"  for  " resulting  from";  "  fact,"  for 
" condition";  "fact,"  for  "conjecture";  "pre 
caution,"  for  "  caution  "  ;  "  explain,"  for  "  de 
termine  "  ;  "  mortified,"  for  "  disappointed  "  ; 
"  meretricious,"  for  "  factitious  " ;  "materially," 
for  "  considerably  "  ;  "  decreasing,"  for  "  deep 
ening  "  ;  "  increasing,"  for  "  disappearing  "  ; 
"  embedded,"  for  "  enclosed  "  ;  "  treacherous," 
for  "  hostile  "  ;  "  stood,"  for  "  stooped  "  ;  "  soft 
ened,"  for  "  replaced  "  ;  "  rejoined,"  for  "  re 
marked  ";  "situation,"  for  "condition";  "dif 
ferent,"  for  "differing";  "insensible,"  for 
"  unsentient "  ;  "  brevity,"  for  "  celerity  " ;  "  dis 
trusted,"  for  "suspicious";  "mental  imbecili 
ty,"  for  "imbecility";  "  eyes,"  for  "sight"; 
"  counteracting,"  for  "  opposing  "  ;  "  funeral 
obsequies,"  for  "  obsequies." 

There  have  been  daring  people  in  the  world 
who  claimed  that  Cooper  could  write  Eng 
lish,  but  they  are  all  dead  now — all  dead  but 
Lounsbury.  I  don't  remember  that  Louns- 
bury  makes  the  claim  in  so  many  words,  still 


FENIMORE   COOPER'S   LITERARY   OFFENCES     115 

he  makes  it,  for  he  says  that  Deer  slayer  is  a 
"  pure  work  of  art."  Pure,  in  that  connec 
tion,  means  faultless — faultless  in  all  details — 
and  language  is  a  detail.  If  Mr.  Lounsbury 
had  only  compared  Cooper's  English  with  the 
English  which  he  writes  himself  —  but  it  is 
plain  that  he  didn't ;  and  so  it  is  likely  that  he 
imagines  until  this  day  that  Cooper's  is  as 
clean  and  compact  as  his  own.  Now  I  feel 
sure,  deep  down  in  my  heart,  that  Cooper 
wrote  about  the  poorest  English  that  exists  in 
our  language,  and  that  the  English  of  Deer- 
slayer  is  the  very  worst  that  even  Cooper  ever 
wrote. 

I  may  be  mistaken,  but  it  does  seem  to  me 
that  Deerslaycr  is  not  a  work  of  art  in  any 
sense  ;  it  does  seem  to  me  that  it  is  destitute 
of  every  detail  that  goes  to  the  making  of  a 
work  of  art ;  in  truth,  it  seems  to  me  that 
Dccrslayer  is  just  simply  a  literary  delirium 
tremens. 

A  work  of  art  ?  It  has  no  invention  ;  it  has 
no  order,  system,  sequence,  or  result ;  it  has 
no  lifelikeness,  no  thrill,  no  stir,  no  seeming  of 
reality;  its  characters  are  confusedly  drawn, 
and  by  their  acts  and  words  they  prove  that 
they  are  not  the  sort  of  people  the  author 
claims  that  they  are;  its  humor  is  pathetic; 


Il6  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

its  pathos  is  funny ;  its  conversations  are— oh ! 
indescribable ;  its  love-scenes  odious ;  its  Eng 
lish  a  crime  against  the  language. 

Counting  these  out,  what  is  left  is  Art.     I 
think  we  must  all  admit  that. 


TRAVELLING  WITH   A   REFORMER 


TRAVELLING   WITH   A   REFORMER 

LAST  spring  I  went  out  to  Chicago  to  see 
the  Fair,  and  although  I  did  not  see  it  my 
trip  was  not  wholly  lost — there  were  compen 
sations.  In  New  York  I  was  introduced  to  a 
major  in  the  regular  army  who  said  he  was 
going  to  the  Fair,  and  we  agreed  to  go  to 
gether.  I  had  to  go  to  Boston  first,  but  that 
did  not  interfere  ;  he  said  he  would  go  along, 
and  put  in  the  time.  He  was  a  handsome 
man,  and  built  like  a  gladiator.  But  his  ways 
were  gentle,  and  his  speech  was  soft  and  per 
suasive.  He  was  companionable,  but  exceed 
ingly  reposeful.  Yes,  and  wholly  destitute  of 
the  sense  of  humor.  He  was  full  of  interest 
in  everything  that  went  on  around  him,  but 
his  serenity  was  indestructible ;  nothing  dis 
turbed  him,  nothing  excited  him. 

But  before  the  day  was  done  I  found  that 
deep  down  in  him  somewhere  he  had  a  pas 
sion,  quiet  as  he  was — a  passion  for  reforming 
petty  public  abuses.  He  stood  for  citizenship 


120  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

— it  was  his  hobby.  His  idea  was  that  every 
citizen  of  the  republic  ought  to  consider  him 
self  an  unofficial  policeman,  and  keep  unsala- 
ried  watch  and  ward  :over  the  laws  and  their 
execution.  He  thought  that  the  only  effec 
tive  way  of  preserving  and  protecting  public 
rights  was  for  each  citizen  to  do  his  share  in 
preventing  or  punishing  such  infringements 
of  them  as  came  under  his  personal  notice. 

It  was  a  good  scheme,  but  I  thought  it 
would  keep  a  body  in  trouble  all  the  time ;  it 
seemed  to  me  that  one  would  be  always  trying 
to  get  offending  little  officials  discharged,  and 
perhaps  getting  laughed  at  for  all  reward.  But 
he  said  no,  I  had  the  wrong  idea ;  that  there 
was  no  occasion  to  get  anybody  discharged ; 
that  in  fact  you  mustn't  get  anybody  dis 
charged  ;  that  that  would  itself  be  a  failure ; 
no,  one  must  reform  the  man — reform  him  and 
make  him  useful  where  he  was. 

"  Must  one  report  the  offender  and  then  beg 
his  superior  not  to  discharge  him,  but  repri 
mand  him  and  keep  him  ?" 

"  No,  that  is  not  the  idea ;  you  don't  report 
him  at  all,  for  then  you  risk  his  bread  and  but 
ter.  You  can  act  as  if  you  are  going  to  report 
him — when  nothing  else  will  answer.  But 
that's  an  extreme  case.  That  is  a  sort  of 


TRAVELLING  WITH  A  REFORMER      121 

force,  and  force  is  bad.  Diplomacy  is  the  ef 
fective  thing.  Now  if  a  man  has  tact — if  a 
man  will  exercise  diplomacy— 

For  two  minutes  we  had  been  standing  at  a 
telegraph  wicket,  and  during  all  this  time  the 
Major  had  been  trying  to  get  the  attention  of 
one  of  the  young  operators,  but  they  were  all 
busy  skylarking.  The  Major  spoke  now,  and 
asked  one  of  them  to  take  his  telegram.  He 
got  for  reply : 

"  I  reckon  you  can  wait  a  minute,  can't 
you?"  and  the  skylarking  went  on. 

The  Major  said  yes,  he  was  not  in  a  hurry. 
Then  he  wrote  another  telegram : 

"President  Western  Union  Tel.  Co.: 

"Come  and  dine  with  me  this  evening.  I  can  tell 
you  how  business  is  conducted  in  one  of  your 
branches." 

Presently  the  young  fellow  who  had  spoken 
so  pertly  a  little  before  reached  out  and  took 
the  telegram,  and  when  he  read  it  he  lost  color 
and  began  to  apologize  and  explain.  He  said 
he  would  lose  his  place  if  this  deadly  telegram 
was  sent,  and  he  might  never  get  another.  If 
he  could  be  let  off  this  time  he  would  give  no 
cause  of  complaint  again.  The  compromise 
was  accepted. 


122  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

As  we  walked  away,  the  Major  said : 
"  Now,  you  see,  that  was  diplomacy  —  and 
you  see  how  it  worked.  It  wouldn't  do  any 
good  to  bluster,  the  way  people  are  always 
doing  —  that  boy  can  always  give  you  as 
good  as  you  send,  and  you'll  come  out  de 
feated  and  ashamed  of  yourself  pretty  nearly 
always.  But  you  see  he  stands  no  chance 
against  diplomacy.  Gentle  words  and  diplo 
macy — those  are  the  tools  to  work  with." 

"  Yes,  I  see ;  but  everybody  wouldn't  have 
had  your  opportunity.  It  isn't  everybody 
that  is  on  those  familiar  terms  with  the  presi 
dent  of  the  Western  Union." 

"  Oh,  you  misunderstand.  I  don't  know  the 
president — I  only  use  him  diplomatically.  It  is 
for  his  good  and  for  the  public  good.  There's 
no  harm  in  it." 

I  said,  with  hesitation  and  diffidence  : 
"  But  is  it  ever  right  or  noble  to  tell  a  lie?" 
He  took  no  note  of  the  delicate  self-right 
eousness  of  the  question,  but  answered,  with 
undisturbed  gravity  and  simplicity : 

"  Yes,,  sometimes.  Lies  told  to  inju»re  a  per 
son,  and  lies  told  to  profit  yourself  are  not 
justifiable,  but  lies  told  to  help  another  person, 
and  lies  told  in  the  public  interest — oh,  well,, 
that  is  quite  another  matter.  Anybody  knows 


TRAVELLING   WITH   A   REFORMER  123 

that.  But  never  mind  about  the  methods: 
you  see  the  result.  That  youth  is  going  to  be 
useful  now,  and  well-behaved.  He  had  a  good 
face.  He  was  worth  saving.  Why,  he  was 
worth  saving  on  his  mother's  account  if  not 
his  own.  Of  course,  he  has  a  mother — sisters, 
too.  Damn  these  people  who  are  always  for 
getting  that !  Do  you  know,  I've  never  fought 
a  duel  in  my  life — never  once — and  yet  have 
been  challenged,  like  other  people.  I  could 
always  see  the  other  man's  unoffending  wom 
en  folks  or  his  little  children  standing  be 
tween  him  and  me.  They  hadn't  done  any 
thing —  I  couldn't  break  their  hearts,  you 
know." 

He  corrected  a  good  many  little  abuses  in 
the  course  of  the  day,  and  always  without 
friction — always  with  a  fine  and  dainty  "  diplo 
macy  "  which  left  no  sting  behind  ;  and  he  got 
such  happiness  and  such  contentment  out  of 
these  performances  that  I  was  obliged  to  envy 
him  his  trade — and  perhaps  would  have  adopt 
ed  it  if  I  could  have  managed  the  necessary 
deflections  from  fact  as  confidently  with  my 
mouth  as  I  believe  I  could  with  a  pen,  behind 
the  shelter  of  print,  after  a  little  practice. 

Away  late  that  night  we  were  coming  up 
town  in  a  horse -car  when  three  boisterous 


124  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

roughs  got  aboard,  and  began  to  fling  hilari 
ous  obscenities  and  profanities  right  and  left 
among  the  timid  passengers,  some  of  whom 
were  women  and  children.  Nobody  resisted 
or  retorted ;  the  conductor  tried  soothing 
words  and  moral  suasion,  but  the  roughs  only 
called  him  names  and  laughed  at  him.  Very 
soon  I  saw  that  the  Major  realized  that  this 
was  a  matter  which  was  in  his  line ;  evidently 
he  was  turning  over  his  stock  of  diplomacy  in 
his  mind  and  getting  ready.  I  felt  that  the 
first  diplomatic  remark  he  made  in  this  place 
would  bring  down  a  land-slide  of  ridicule  upon 
him  and  maybe  something  worse ;  but  before 
I  could  whisper  to  him  and  check  him  he  had 
begun,  and  it  was  too  late.  He  said,  in  a  level 
and  dispassionate  tone: 

"  Conductor,  you  must  put  these  swine  out. 
I  will  help  you." 

I  was  not  looking  for  that.  In  a  flash  the 
three  roughs  plunged  at  him.  But  none  of 
them  arrived.  He  delivered  three  such  blows 
as  one  could  not  expect  to  encounter  outside 
the  prize-ring,  and  neither  of  the  men  had  life 
enough  left  in  him  to  get  up  from  where  he 
fell.  The  Major  dragged  them  out  and  threw 
them  off  the  car,  and  we  got  under  way  again. 

I  was  astonished ;  astonished  to  see  a  lamb 


' 

fl  TJNJV 

TRAVELLING   WITH   A\  REFORMER  125 

X;         ^^^ 

act  so ;  astonished  at  the  strength  displayed, 
and  the  clean  and  comprehensive  result;  as 
tonished  at  the  brisk  and  business-like  style  of 
the  whole  thing.  The  situation  had  a  humor 
ous  side  to  it,  considering  how  much  I  had 
been  hearing  about  mild  persuasion  and  gen 
tle  diplomacy  all  day  from  this  pile-driver,  and 
I  would  have  liked  to  call  his  attention  to  that 
feature  and  do  some  sarcasms  about  it ;  but 
when  I  looked  at  him  I  saw  that  it  would  be 
of  no  use — his  placid  and  contented  face  had 
no  ray  of  humor  in  it ;  he  would  not  have  un 
derstood.  When  we  left  the  car,  I  said  : 

"That  was  a  good  stroke  of  diplomacy  — 
three  good  strokes  of  diplomacy,  in  fact." 

"That?  That  wasn't  diplomacy.  You  are 
quite  in  the  wrong.  Diplomacy  is  a  wholly 
different  thing.  One  cannot  apply  it  to  that 
sort,  they  would  not  understand  it.  No,  that 
was  not  diplomacy  ;  it  was  force." 

"  Now  that  you  mention  it,  I — yes,  I  think 
perhaps  you  are  right." 

"Right?  Of  course  I  am  right.  It  was 
just  force." 

"  I  think,  myself,  it  had  the  outside  aspect 
of  it.  Do  you  often  have  to  reform  people  in 
that  way?" 

"  Far  from  it.    It  hardly  ever  happens.    Not 


126  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

oftener  than  once  in  half  a  year,  at  the  out 
side." 

" Those  men  will  get  well?" 

"Get  well?  Why,  certainly  they  will.  They 
are  not  in  any  danger.  I  know  how  to  hit 
and  where  to  hit.  You  noticed  that  I  did  not 
hit  them  under  the  jaw.  That  would  have 
killed  them." 

I  believed  that.  I  remarked — rather  wittily, 
as  I  thought  —  that  he  had  been  a  lamb  all 
day,  but  now  had  all  of  a  sudden  developed 
into  a  ram — battering-ram;  but  with  dulcet 
frankness  and  simplicity  he  said  no,  a  batter 
ing-ram  was  quite  a  different  thing  and  not  in 
use  now.  This  was  maddening,  and  I  came 
near  bursting  out  and  saying  he  had  no  more 
appreciation  of  wit  than  a  jackass — in  fact,  I 
had  it  right  on  my  tongue,  but  did  not  say 
it,  knowing  there  was  no  hurry  and  I  could 
say  it  just  as  well  some  other  time  over  the 
telephone. 

We  started  to  Boston  the  next  afternoon. 
The  smoking -compartment  in  the  parlor -car 
was  full,  and  we  went  into  the  regular  smoker. 
Across  the  aisle  in  the  front  seat  sat  a  meek, 
farmer-looking  old  man  with  a  sickly  pallor  in 
his  face,  and  he  was  holding  the  door  open 
with  his  foot  to  get  the  air.  Presently  a  big 


TRAVELLING    WITH   A    REFORMER  127 

brakeman  came  rushing  through,  and  when  he 
got  to  the  door  he  stopped,  gave  the  farmer 
an  ugly  scowl,  then  wrenched  the  door  to  with 
such  energy  as  to  almost  snatch  the  old  man's 
boot  off.  Then  on  he  plunged  about  his  busi 
ness.  Several  passengers  laughed,  and  the 
old  gentleman  looked  pathetically  shamed  and 
grieved. 

After  a  little  the  conductor  passed  along,  and 
the  Major  stopped  him  and  asked  him  a  ques 
tion  in  his  habitually  courteous  way: 

"  Conductor,  where  does  one  report  the  mis 
conduct  of  a  brakeman?  Does  one  report  to 
you?" 

"You  can  report  him  at  New  Haven  if  you 
want  to.  What  has  he  been  doing?" 

The  Major  told  the  story.  The  conductor 
seemed  amused.  He  said,  with  just  a  touch 
of  sarcasm  in  his  bland  tones : 

"As  I  understand  you,  the  brakeman  didn't 
say  anything." 

"  No,  he  didn't  say  anything." 

"  But  he  scowled,  you  say." 

"Yes." 

"  And  snatched  the  door  loose  in  a  rough 
way." 

"Yes." 

"That's  the  whole  business,  is  it?" 


128  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

"Yes,  that  is  the  whole  of  it." 

The  conductor  smiled  pleasantly,  and  said  : 

"  Well,  if  you  want  to  report  him,  all  right, 
but  I  don't  quite  make  out  what  it's  going  to 
amount  to.  You'll  say — as  I  understand  you 
— that  the  brakeman  insulted  this  old  gentle 
man.  They'll  ask  you  what  he  said.  You'll 
say  he  didn't  say  anything  at  all.  I  reckon 
they'll  say,  how  are  you  going  to  make  out  an 
insult  when  you  acknowledge  yourself  that  he 
didn't  say  a  word." 

There  was  a  murmur  of  applause  at  the  con 
ductor's  compact  reasoning,  and  it  gave  him 
pleasure — you  could  see  it  in  his  face.  But 
the  Major  was  not  disturbed.  He  said : 

"  There — now  you  have  touched  upon  a  cry 
ing  defect  in  the  complaint-system.  The  rail 
way  officials — as  the  public  think  and  as  you 
also  seem  to  think — are  not  aware  that  there 
are  any  kind  of  insults  except  spoken  ones. 
So  nobody  goes  to  headquarters  and  reports 
insults  of  manner,  insults  of  gesture,  look,  and 
"so  forth ;  and  yet  these  are  sometimes  harder 
to  bear  than  any  words.  They  are  bitter  hard 
to  bear  because  there  is  nothing  tangible  to 
take  hold  of ;  and  the  insulter  can  always  say, 
if  called  before  the  railway  officials,  that  he 
never  dreamed  of  intending  any  offence.  It 


TRAVELLING  WITH  A  REFORMER       129 

seems  to  me  that  the  officials  ought  to  special 
ly  and  urgently  request  the  public  to  report 
unwordcd  affronts  and  incivilities." 

The  conductor  laughed,  and  said  : 

"  Well,  that  would  be  trimming  it  pretty 
fine,  sure !" 

"  But  not  too  fine,  I  think.  I  will  report 
this  matter  at  New  Haven,  and  I  have  an  idea 
that  I'll  be  thanked  for  it." 

The  conductor's  face  lost  something  of  its 
complacency;  in  fact,  it  settled  to  a  quite  sober 
cast  as  the  owner  of  it  moved  away.  I  said  : 

"You  are  not  really  going  to  bother  with 
that  trifle,  are  you  ?" 

"  It  isn't  a  trifle.  Such  things  ought  always 
to  be  reported.  It  is  a  public  duty,  and  no 
citizen  has  a  right  to  shirk  it.  But  I  sha'n't 
have  to  report  this  case." 

"Why?" 

"  It  won't  be  necessary.  Diplomacy  will  do 
the  business.  You'll  see." 

Presently  the  conductor  came  on  his  rounds 
again,  and  when  he  reached  the  Major  he  leaned 
over  and  said : 

"That's  all  right.  You  needn't  report  him. 
He's  responsible  to  me,  and  if  he  does  it  again 
I'll  give  him  a  talking  to." 

The  Major's  response  was  cordial : 
9 


130  HOW  TO   TELL   A   STORY 

"  Now  that  is  what  I  like !  You  mustn't 
think  that  I  was  moved  by  any  vengeful  spirit, 
for  that  wasn't  the  case.  It  was  duty — just  a 
sense  of  duty,  that  was  all.  My  brother-in- 
law  is  one  of  the  directors  of  the  road,  and 
when  he  learns  that  you  are  going  to  reason 
with  your  brakeman  the  very  next  time  he 
brutally  insults  an  unoffending  old  man  it  will 
please  him,  you  may  be  sure  of  that." 

The  conductor  did  not  look  as  joyous  as 
one  might  have  thought  he  would,  but  on  the 
contrary  looked  sickly  and  uncomfortable.  He 
stood  around  a  little  ;  then  said  : 

"/  think  something  ought  to  be  done  to  him 
now.  I'll  discharge  him." 

"  Discharge  him  ?  What  good  would  that 
do  ?  Don't  you  think  it  would  be  better  wis 
dom  to  teach  him  better  ways  and  keep 
him?" 

"  Well,  there's  something  in  that.  What 
would  you  suggest?" 

"  He  insulted  the  old  gentleman  in  presence 
of  all  these  people.  How  would  it  do  to  have 
him  come  and  apologize  in  their  presence?" 

"  I'll  have  him  here  right  off.  And  I  want 
to  say  this  :  If  people  would  do  as  you've  done, 
and  report  such  things  to  me  instead  of  keep 
ing  mum  and  going  off  and  blackguarding  the 


TRAVELLING  WITH  A  REFORMER      131 

road,  you'd  see  a  different  state  of  things  pret 
ty  soon.     I'm  much  obliged  to  you." 

The  brakeman  came  and  apologized.  After 
he  was  gone  the  Major  said : 

"  Now,  you  see  how  simple  and  easy  that 
was.  The  ordinary  citizen  would  have  accom 
plished  nothing— the  brother-in-law  of  a  di 
rector  can  accomplish  anything  he  wants  to." 

"  But  are  you  really  the  brother-in-law  of  a 
director?" 

"  Always.  Always  when  the  public  inter 
ests  require  it.  I  have  a  brother-in-law  on  all 
the  boards — everywhere.  It  saves  me  a  world 
of  trouble." 

"  It  is  a  good  wide  relationship." 

"  Yes.    I  have  over  three  hundred  of  them." 

"  Is  the  relationship  never  doubted  by  a 
conductor?" 

"  I  have  never  met  with  a  case.  It  is  the 
honest  truth — I  never  have." 

"  Why  didn't  you  let  him  go  ahead  and  dis 
charge  the  brakeman,  in  spite  of  your  favorite 
policy?  You  know  he  deserved  it." 

The  Major  answered  with  something  which 
really  had  a  sort  of  distant  resemblance  to  im 
patience  : 

"  If  you  would  stop  and  think  a  moment 
you  wouldn't  ask  such  a  question  as  that.  Is 


132  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

a  brakeman  a  dog,  that  nothing  but  dog's 
methods  will  do  for  him?  He  is  a  man,  and 
has  a  man's  fight  for  life.  And  he  always  has 
a  sister,  or  a  mother,  or  wife  and  children  to 
support.  Always — there  are  no  exceptions. 
When  you  take  his  living  away  from  him  you 
take  theirs  away  too — and  what  have  they 
done  to  you?  Nothing.  And  where  is  the 
profit  in  discharging  an  uncourteous  brake 
man  and  hiring  another  just  like  him?  It's 
unwisdom.  Don't  you  see  that  the  rational 
thing  to  do  is  to  reform  the  brakeman  and 
keep  him?  Of  course  it  is." 

Then  he  quoted  with  admiration  the  con 
duct  of  a  certain  division  superintendent  of 
the  Consolidated  road,  in  a  case  where  a  switch 
man  of  two  years'  experience  was  negligent 
once  and  threw  a  train  off  the  track  and  killed 
several  people.  Citizens  came  in  a  passion  to 
urge  the  man's  dismissal,  but  the  superintend 
ent  said : 

"  No,  you  are  wrong.  He  has  learned  his 
lesson,  he  will  throw  no  more  trains  off  the 
track.  He  is  twice  as  valuable  as  he  was  be 
fore.  I  shall  keep  him." 

We  had  only  one  more  adventure  on  the 
trip.  Between  Hartford  and  Springfield  the 
train-boy  came  shouting  in  with  an  armful  of 


TRAVELLING   WITH    A    REFORMER  133 

literature  and  dropped  a  sample  into  a  slum 
bering  gentleman's  lap,  and  the  man  woke  up 
with  a  start.  He  was  very  angry,  and  he  and 
a  couple  of  friends  discussed  the  outrage  with 
much  heat.  They  sent  for  the  parlor-car  con 
ductor  and  described  the  matter,  and  were  de 
termined  to  have  the  boy  expelled  from  his 
situation.  The  three  complainants  were  wealthy 
Holyokc  merchants,  and  it  was  evident  that 
the  conductor  stood  in  some  awe  of  them.  He 
tried  to  pacify  them,  and  explained  that  the 
boy  was  not  under  his  authority,  but  under 
that  of  one  of  the  news  companies ;  but  he  ac 
complished  nothing. 

Then  the  Major  volunteered  some  testimony 
for  the  defence.  He  said  : 

"  I  saw  it  all.  You  gentlemen  have  not 
meant  to  exaggerate  the  circumstances,  but 
still  that  is  what  you  have  done.  The  boy  has 
done  nothing  more  than  all  train-boys  do.  If 
you  want  to  get  his  ways  softened  down  and 
his  manners  reformed,  I  am  with  you  and  ready 
to  help,  but  it  isn't  fair  to  get  him  discharged 
without  giving  him  a  chance." 

But  they  were  angry,  and  would  hear  of 
no  compromise.  They  were  well  acquainted 
with  the  president  of  the  Boston  &  Albany, 
they  said,  and  would  put  everything  aside 


134  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

next  day  and  go  up  to  Boston  and  fix  that 
boy. 

The  Major  said  he  would  be  on  hand  too, 
and  would  do  what  he  could  to  save  the  boy. 
One  of  the  gentlemen  looked  him  over,  and 
said  : 

"  Apparently  it  is  going  to  be  a  matter  of 
who  can  wield  the  most  influence  with  the 
president.  Do  you  know  Mr.  Bliss  personally?" 

The  Major  said,  with  composure : 

"Yes;  he  is  my  uncle." 

The  effect  was  satisfactory.  There  was  an 
awkward  silence  for  a  minute  or  more ;  then 
the  hedging  and  the  half-confessions  of  over- 
haste  and  exaggerated  resentment  began,  and 
soon  everything  was  smooth  and  friendly  and 
sociable,  and  it  was  resolved  to  drop  the  mat 
ter  and  leave  the  boy's  bread-and-butter  un 
molested. 

It  turned  out  as  I  had  expected :  the  presi 
dent  of  the  road  was  not  the  Major's  uncle  at 
all — except  by  adoption,  and  for  this  day  and 
train  only. 

We  got  into  no  episodes  on  the  return  jour 
ney.  Probably  it  was  because  we  took  a  night 
train  and  slept  all  the  way. 

We  left  New  York  Saturday  night  by  the 
Pennsylvania  road.  After  breakfast  the  next 


TRAVELLING   WITH   A   REFORMER  135 

morning  we  went  into  the  parlor-car,  but  found 
it  a  dull  place  and  dreary.  There  were  but 
few  people  in  it  and  nothing  going  on.  Then 
we  went  into  the  little  smoking-compartment 
of  the  same  car  and  found  three  gentlemen  in 
there.  Two  of  them  were  grumbling  over  one 
of  the  rules  of  the  road — a  rule  which  forbade 
card-playing  on  the  trains  on  Sunday.  They 
had  started  an  innocent  game  of  high-low-jack 
and  been  stopped.  The  Major  was  interested. 
He  said  to  the  third  gentleman : 

44  Did  you  object  to  the  game?" 

"  Not  at  all.  I  am  a  Yale  professor  and  a 
religious  man,  but  my  prejudices  are  not  ex 
tensive." 

Then  the  Major  said  to  the  others : 

"  You  are  at  perfect  liberty  to  resume  your 
game,  gentlemen  ;  no  one  here  objects." 

One  of  them  declined  the  risk,  but  the  other 
one  said  he  would  like  to  begin  again  if  the 
Major  would  join  him.  So  they  spread  an 
overcoat  over  their  knees  and  the  game  pro 
ceeded.  Pretty  soon  the  parlor-car  conductor 
arrived,  and  said,  brusquely : 

"  There,  there,  gentlemen,  that  won't  do. 
Put  up  the  cards — it's  not  allowed." 

The  Major  was  shuffling.  He  continued  to 
shuffle,  and  said : 


136  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

"  By  whose  order  is  it  forbidden  ?" 

"  It's  my  order.     I  forbid  it." 

The  dealing  began.     The  Major  asked : 

"  Did  you  invent  the  idea?" 

"What  idea?" 

"The  idea  of  forbidding  card -playing  on 
Sunday." 

"  No — of  course  not." 

"Who  did?" 

"  The  company." 

"  Then  it  isn't  your  order,  after  all,  but  the 
company's.  Is  that  it  ?" 

"  Yes.  But  you  don't  stop  playing  ;  I  have 
to  require  you  to  stop  playing  immediately." 

"  Nothing  is  gained  by  hurry,  and  often 
much  is  lost.  Who  authorized  the  company 
to  issue  such  an  order?" 

"  My  dear  sir,  that  is  a  matter  of  no  conse 
quence  to  me,  and — " 

"  But  you  forget  that  you  are  not  the  only 
person  concerned.  It  may  be  a  matter  of 
consequence  to  me.  It  is  indeed  a  matter  of 
very  great  importance  to  me.  I  cannot  vio 
late  a  legal  requirement  of  my  country  with 
out  dishonoring  myself;  I  cannot  allow  any 
man  or  corporation  to  hamper  my  liberties 
with  illegal  rules — a  thing  which  railway  com 
panies  are  always  trying  to  do — without  dis- 


TRAVELLING   WITH   A   REFORMER  137 

honoring  my  citizenship.  So  I  come  back  to 
that  question :  By  whose  authority  has  the 
company  issued  this  order?" 

"  I  don't  knoiv.     That's  their  affair." 

"  Mine,  too.  I  doubt  if  the  company  has 
any  right  to  issue  such  a  rule.  This  road  runs 
through  several  States.  Do  you  know  what 
State  we  are  in  now,  and  what  its  laws  are  in 
matters  of  this  kind?" 

"  Its  laws  do  not  concern  me,  but  the  com 
pany's  orders  do.  It  is  my  duty  to  stop  this 
game,  gentlemen,  and  it  must  be  stopped." 

"  Possibly ;  but  still  there  is  no  hurry.  In 
hotels  they  post  certain  rules  in  the  rooms,  but 
they  always  quote  passages  from  the  State 
law  as  authority  for  these  requirements.  I 
see  nothing  posted  here  of  this  sort.  Please 
produce  your  authority  and  let  us  arrive  at  a 
decision,  for  you  see  yourself  that  you  are 
marring  the  game." 

"  I  have  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  I  have  my 
orders,  and  that  is  sufficient.  They  must  be 
obeyed." 

"  Let  us  not  jump  to  conclusions.  It  will 
be  better  all  around  to  examine  into  the  mat 
ter  without  heat  or  haste,  and  see  just  where 
we  stand  before  either  of  us  makes  a  mistake 
— for  the  curtailing  of  the  liberties  of  a  citizen 


138  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

of  the  United  States  is  a  much  more  serious 
matter  than  you  and  the  railroads  seem  to 
think,  and  it  cannot  be  done  in  my  person 
until  the  curtailer  proves  his  right  to  do  so. 
Now—" 

"  My  dear  sir,  will  you  put  down  those 
cards?" 

"  All  in  good  time,  perhaps.  It  depends. 
You  say  this  order  must  be  obeyed.  Must. 
It  is  a  strong  word.  You  see  yourself  how 
strong  it  is.  A  wise  company  would  not  arm 
you  with  so  drastic  an  order  as  this,  of  course, 
without  appointing  a  penalty  for  its  infringe 
ment.  Otherwise  it  runs  the  risk  of  being  a 
dead  letter  and  a  thing  to  laugh  at.  What  is 
the  appointed  penalty  for  an  infringement  of 
this  law?" 

"  Penalty?     I  never  heard  of  any." 

"Unquestionably  you  must  be  mistaken. 
Your  company  orders  you  to  come  here  and 
rudely  break  up  an  innocent  amusement,  and 
furnishes  you  no  way  to  enforce  the  order? 
Don't  you  see  that  that  is  nonsense?  What  do 
you  do  when  people  refuse  to  obey  this  order? 
Do  you  take  the  cards  away  from  them  ?" 

"No." 

"  Do  you  put  the  offender  off  at  the  next 
station  ?" 


TRAVELLING  WITH  A  REFORMER       139 

"Well,  no— of  course  we  couldn't  if  he  had 
a  ticket." 

"  Do  you  have  him  up  before  a  court?" 

The  conductor  was  silent  and  apparently 
troubled.  The  Major  started  a  new  deal,  and 
said : 

"  You  see  that  you  are  helpless,  and  that  the 
company  has  placed  you  in  a  foolish  position. 
You  are  furnished  with  an  arrogant  order,  and 
you  deliver  it  in  a  blustering  way,  and  when 
you  come  to  look  into  the  matter  you  find  you 
haven't  any  way  of  enforcing  obedience." 

The  conductor  said,  with  chill  dignity  : 

"  Gentlemen,  you  have  heard  the  order,  and 
my  duty  is  ended.  As  to  obeying  it  or  not, 
you  will  do  as  you  think  fit."  And  he  turned 
to  leave. 

"  But  wait.  The  matter  is  not  yet  finished. 
I  think. you  are  mistaken  about  your  duty  be 
ing  ended ;  but  if  it  really  is,  I  myself  have  a 
duty  to  perform  yet." 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  Are  you  going  to  report  my  disobedience 
at  headquarters  in  Pittsburg?" 

"  No.     What  good  would  that  do  ?" 

"  You  must  report  me,  or  I  will  report 
you." 

"  Report  me  for  what?" 


140  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

"  For  disobeying  the  company's  orders  in 
not  stopping  this  game.  As  a  citizen  it  is 
my  duty  to  help  the  railway  companies  keep 
their  servants  to  their  work." 

"  Are  you  in  earnest?" 

"Yes,  I  am  in  earnest.  I  have  nothing 
against  you  as  a  man,  but  I  have  this  against 
you  as  an  officer — that  you  have  not  carried 
out  that  order,  and  if  you  do  not  report  me  I 
must  report  you.  And  I  will." 

The  conductor  looked  puzzled,  and  was 
thoughtful  a  moment ;  then  he  burst  out  with : 

"  I  seem  to  be  getting  myself  into  a  scrape! 
It's  all  a  muddle ;  I  can't  make  head  or  tail  of 
it ;  it's  never  happened  before ;  they  always 
knocked  under  and  never  said  a  word,  and  so 
/  never  saw  how  ridiculous  that  stupid  order 
with  no  penalty  is.  /  don't  want  to  report 
anybody,  and  I  don't  want  to  be  reported — 
why,  it  might  do  me  no  end  of  harm !  Now 
do  go  on  with  the  game — play  the  whole  day 
if  you  want  to — and  don't  let's  have  any  more 
trouble  about  it !" 

<;  No,  I  only  sat  down  here  to  establish  this 
gentleman's  rights  —  he  can  have  his  place 
now.  But  before  you  go  won't  you  tell  me 
what  you  think  the  company  made  this  rule 
for?  Can  you  imagine  an  excuse  for  it?  I 


TRAVELLING  WITH  A  REFORMER       141 

mean  a  rational  one — an  excuse  that  is  not  on 
its  face  silly,  and  the  invention  of  an  idiot?" 

"  Why,  surely  I  can.  The  reason  it  was 
made  is  plain  enough.  It  is  to  save  the  feel 
ings  of  the  other  passengers — the  religious 
ones  among  them,  I  mean.  They  would  not 
like  it,  to  have  the  Sabbath  desecrated  by  card- 
playing  on  the  train." 

"  I  just  thought  as  much.  They  are  willing 
to  desecrate  it  themselves  by  travelling  on 
Sunday,  but  they  are  not  willing  that  other 
people — 

"  By  gracious,  you've  hit  it !  I  never  thought 
of  that  before.  The  fact  is,  it  is  a  silly  rule 
when  you  come  to  look  into  it." 

At  this  point  the  train -conductor  arrived, 
and  was  going  to  shut  down  the  game  in  a 
very  high-handed  fashion,  but  the  parlor-car 
conductor  stopped  him  and  took  him  aside  to 
explain.  Nothing  more  was  heard  of  the  mat 
ter. 

I  was  ill  in  bed  eleven  days  in  Chicago  and 
got  no  glimpse  of  the  Fair,  for  I  was  obliged 
to  return  east  as  soon  as  I  was  able  to  travel. 
The  Major  secured  and  paid  for  a  state-room 
in  a  sleeper  the  day  before  we  left,  so  that  I 
could  have  plenty  of  room  and  be  comfortable; 
but  when  we  arrived  at  the  station  a  mistake 


142  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

had  been  made  and  our  car  had  not  been  put 
on.  The  conductor  had  reserved  a  section  for 
us — it  was  the  best  he  could  do,  he  said.  But 
the  Major  said  we  were  not  in  a  hurry,  and 
would  wait  for  the  car  to  be  put  on.  The 
conductor  responded,  with  pleasant  irony : 

"  It  may  be  that  you  are  not  in  a  hurry,  just 
as  you  say,  but  we  are.  Come,  get  aboard, 
gentlemen,  get  aboard  —  don't  keep  us  wait 
ing." 

But  the  Major  would  not  get  aboard  him 
self  nor  allow  me  to  do  it.  He  wanted  his 
car,  and  said  he  must  have  it.  This  made  the 
hurried  and  perspiring  conductor  impatient, 
and  he  said : 

"  It's  the  best  we  can  do — we  can't  do  im 
possibilities.  You  will  take  the  section  or  go 
without.  A  mistake  has  been  made  and  can't 
be  rectified  at  this  late  hour.  It's  a  thing  that 
happens  now  and  then,  and  there  is  nothing 
for  it  but  to  put  up  with  it  and  make  the  best 
of  it.  Other  people  do." 

"  Ah,  that  is  just  it,  you  see.  If  they  had 
stuck  to  their  rights  and  enforced  them  you 
wouldn't  be  trying  to  trample  mine  under 
foot  in  this  bland  way  now.  I  haven't  any 
disposition  to  give  you  unnecessary  trouble, 
but  it  is  my  duty  to  protect  the  next  man  from 


TRAVELLING  WITH  A  REFORMER       143 

this  kind  of  imposition.  So  I  must  have 
my  car.  Otherwise  I  will  wait  in  Chicago 
and  sue  the  company  for  violating  its  con 
tract." 

"  Sue  the  company? — for  a  thing  like  that !" 

"  Certainly." 

"  Do  you  really  mean  that?" 

"  Indeed,  I  do." 

The  conductor  looked  the  Major  over  won- 
deringly,  and  then  said  : 

"It  beats  me — it's  bran-new — I've  never 
struck  the  mate  to  it  before.  But  I  swear  I 
think  you'd  do  it.  Look  here,  I'll  send  for  the 
station-master." 

When  the  station-master  came  he  was  a 
good  deal  annoyed — at  the  Major,  not  at  the 
person  who  had  made  the  mistake.  He  was 
rather  brusque,  and  took  the  same  position 
which  the  conductor  had  taken  in  the  begin 
ning  ;  but  he  failed  to  move  the  soft-spoken 
artilleryman,  who  still  insisted  that  he  must 
have  his  car.  However,  it  was  plain  that  there 
was  only  one  strong  side  in  this  case,  and  that 
that  side  was  the  Major's.  The  station-mas 
ter  banished  his  annoyed  manner,  and  became 
pleasant  and  even  half-apologetic.  This  made 
a  good  opening  for  a  compromise,  and  the 
Major  made  a  concession.  He  said  he  would 


144  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

give  up  the  engaged  state-room,  but  he  must 
have  a  state-room.  After  a  deal  of  ransacking, 
one  was  found  whose  owner  was  persuadable ; 
he  exchanged  it  for  our  section,  and  we  got 
away  at  last.  The  conductor  called  on  us  in 
the  evening,  and  was  kind  and  courteous  and 
obliging,  and  we  had  a  long  talk  and  got  to  be 
good  friends.  He  said  he  wished  the  public 
would  make  trouble  oftener — it  would  have 
a  good  effect.  He  said  that  the  railroads  could 
not  be  expected  to  do  their  whole  duty  by 
the  traveller  unless  the  traveller  would  take 
some  interest  in  the  matter  himself. 

I  hoped  that  we  were  done  reforming  for 
the  trip  now,  but  it  was  not  so.  In  the  hotel- 
car,  in  the  morning,  the  Major  called  for  broiled 
chicken.  The  waiter  said  : 

"  It's  not  in  the  bill  of  fare,  sir ;  we  do  not 
serve  anything  but  what  is  in  the  bill." 

"  That  gentleman  yonder  is  eating  a  broiled 
chicken." 

"Yes,  but  that  is  different.  He  is  one  of 
the  superintendents  of  the  road." 

"  Then  all  the  more  must  I  have  broiled 
chicken.  I  do  not  like  these  discriminations. 
Please  hurry — bring  me  a  broiled  chicken." 

The  waiter  brought  the  steward,  who  ex 
plained  in  a  low  and  polite  voice  that  the 


TRAVELLING   WITH   A   REFORMER  145 

thing  was  impossible — it  was  against  the  rule, 
and  the  rule  was  rigid. 

"  Very  well,  then,  you  must  either  apply  it 
impartially  or  break  it  impartially.  You  must 
take  that  gentleman's  chicken  away  from  him 
or  bring  me  one." 

The  steward  was  puzzled,  and  did  not  quite 
know  what  to  do.  He  began  an  incoherent 
argument,  but  the  conductor  came  along  just 
then,  and  asked  what  the  difficulty  was.  The 
steward  explained  that  here  was  a  gentleman 
who  was  insisting  on  having  a  chicken  when  it 
was  dead  against  the  rule  and  not  in  the  bill. 
The  conductor  said: 

"  Stick  by  your  rules — you  haven't  any  op 
tion.  Watt  a  moment — is  this  the  gentleman  ?" 
Then  he  laughed  and  said  :  "  Never  mind  your 
rules  —  it's  my  advice,  and  sound;  give  him 
anything  he  wants — don't  get  him  started  on 
his  rights.  Give  him  whatever  he  asks  for; 
and  if  you  haven't  got  it,  stop  the  train  and 
get  it." 

The  Major  ate  the  chicken,  but  said  he  did 
it  from  a  sense  of  duty  and  to  establish  a  prin 
ciple,  for  he  did  not  like  chicken. 

I  missed  the  Fair  it  is  true,  but  I  picked  up 
some  diplomatic  tricks  which  I  and  the  reader 
may  find  handy  and  useful  as  we  go  along. 


PRIVATE    HISTORY  OF  THE   -JUMPING 
FROG"  STORY 


PRIVATE    HISTORY    OF    THE    "JUMPING 
FROG  "   STORY 

FIVE  or  six  years  ago  a  lady  from  Finland 
asked  me  to  tell  her  a  story  in  our  negro  dia 
lect,  so  that  she  could  get  an  idea  of  what  that 
variety  of  speech  was  like.  I  told  her  one  of 
Hopkinson  Smith's  negro  stories,  and  gave  her 
a  copy  of  Harper  s  Monthly  containing  it.  She 
translated  it  for  a  Swedish  newspaper,  but  by 
an  oversight  named  me  as  the  author  of  it 
instead  of  Smith.  I  was  very  sorry  for  that, 
because  I  got  a  good  lashing  in  the  Swedish 
press,  which  would  have  fallen  to  his  share  but 
for  that  mistake;  for  it  was  shown  that  Boc 
caccio  had  told  that  very  story,  in  his  curt 
and  meagre  fashion,  five  hundred  years  before 
Smith  took  hold  of  it  and  made  a  good  and 
tellable  thing  out  of  it. 

I  have  always  been  sorry  for  Smith.  But 
my  own  turn  has  come  now.  A  few  weeks 
ago  Professor  Van  Dyke,  of  Princeton,  asked 
this  question: 


150  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

"  Do  you  know  how  old  your  Jumping  Frog 
story  is  ?" 

And  I  answered: 

"  Yes  —  forty -five  years.  The  thing  hap 
pened  in  Calaveras  County  in  the  spring  of 

1849." 

"  No ;  it  happened  earlier  —  a  couple  of 
thousand  years  earlier;  it  is  a  Greek  story." 

I  was  astonished — and  hurt.     I  said  : 

"  I  am  willing  to  be  a  literary  thief  if  it  has 
been  so  ordained ;  I  am  even  willing  to  be 
caught  robbing  the  ancient  dead  alongside  of 
Hopkinson  Smith,  for  he  is  my  friend  and  a 
good  fellow,  and  I  think  would  be  as  honest 
as  any  one  if  he  could  do  it  without  occasion 
ing  remark ;  but  I  am  not  willing  to  antedate 
his  crimes  by  fifteen  hundred  years.  I  must 
ask  you  to  knock  off  part  of  that." 

But  the  professor  was  not  chaffing ;  he  was 
in  earnest,  and  could  not  abate  a  century.  He 
named  the  Greek  author,  and  offered  to  get 
the  book  and  send  it  to  me  and  the  college 
text -book  containing  the  English  translation 
also.  I  thought  I  would  like  the  translation 
best,  because  Greek  makes  me  tired.  January 
3<Dth  he  sent  me  the  English  version,  and  I 
will  presently  insert  it  in  this  article.  It  is 
my  Jumping  Frog  tale  in  every  essential.  It 


PRIVATE    HISTORY   OF    "JUMPING  FROG "  STORY    { £ 

is  not  strung  out  as  I  have  strung  it  out,  but  it 
is  all  there. 

To  me  this  is  very  curious  and  interesting. 
Curious  for  several  reasons.     For  instance  : 

I  heard  the  story  told  by  a  man  who  was 
not  telling  it  to  his  hearers  as  a  thing  new  to 
them,  but  as  a  thing  which  they  had  witnessed 
and  would  remember.  He  was  a  dull  person, 
and  ignorant ;  he  had  no  gift  as  a  story-teller, 
and  no  invention  ;  in  his  mouth  this  episode 
was  merely  history  —  history  and  statistics; 
and  the  gravest  sort  of  history,  too  ;  he  was 
entirely  serious,  for  he  was  dealing  with  what 
to  him  were  austere  facts,  and  they  interested 
him  solely  because  they  were  facts ;  he  was 
drawing  on  his  memory,  not  his  mind  ;  he  saw 
no  humor  in  his  tale,  neither  did  his  listeners ; 
neither  he  nor  they  ever  smiled  or  laughed ; 
in  my  time  I  have  not  attended  a  more  solemn 
conference.  To  him  and  to  his  fellow  gold- 
miners  there  were  just  two  things  in  the  story 
that  were  worth  considering.  One  was  the 
smartness  of  its  hero,  Jim  Smiley,  in  taking 
the  stranger  in  with  a  loaded  frog;  and  the 
other  was  Smiley's  deep  knowledge  of  a  frog's 
nature — for  he  knew  (as  the  narrator  asserted 
and  the  listeners  conceded)  that  a  frog  likes 
shot  and  is  always  ready  to  eat  it.  Those  men 


152  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

discussed  those  two  points,  and  those  only. 
They  were  hearty  in  their  admiration  of  them, 
and  none  of  the  party  was  aware  that  a  first- 
rate  story  had  been  told  in  a  first-rate  way, 
and  that  it  was  brimful  of  a  quality  whose 
presence  they  never  suspected — humor. 

Now,  then,  the  interesting  question  is,  did 
the  frog  episode  happen  in  Angel's  Camp  in 
the  spring  of  '49,  as  told  in  my  hearing  that 
day  in  the  fall  of  1865?  I  am  perfectly  sure 
that  it  did.  I  am  also  sure  that  its  duplicate 
happened  in  Bceotia  a  couple  of  thousand 
years  ago.  I  think  it  must  be  a  case  of  history 
actually  repeating  itself,  and  not  a  case  of  a 
good  story  floating  down  the  ages  and  surviv 
ing  because  too  good  to  be  allowed  to  perish. 

I  would  now  like  to  have  the  reader  exam 
ine  the  Greek  story  and  the  story  told  by  the 
dull  and  solemn  Californian,  and  observe  how 
exactly  alike  they  are  in  essentials. 

{Translation^ 

THE  ATHENIAN  AND  THE  FROG.* 

An  Athenian  once  fell  in  with  a  Boeotian  who  was 
sitting  by  the  road-side  looking  at  a  frog.  Seeing  the 
other  approach,  the  Boeotian  said  his  was  a  remarka- 

*  Sidgwick,  Greek  Prose  Composition,  page  116. 


PRIVATE    HISTORY    OF   "JUMPING    FROG "  STORY     153 

ble  frog,  and  asked  if  he  would  agree  to  start  a  con 
test  of  frogs,  on  condition  that  lie  whose  frog  jumped 
farthest  should  receive  a  large  sum  of  money.  The 
Athenian  replied  that  he  would  if  the  other  would 
fetch  him  a  frog,  for  the  lake  was  near.  To  this  he 
agreed,  and  when  he  was  gone  the  Athenian  took  the 
frog,  and,  opening  its  mouth,  poured  some  stones  into 
its  stomach,  so  that  it  did  not  indeed  seem  larger 
than  before,  but  could  not  jump.  The  Boeotian  soon 
returned  with  the  other  frog,  and  the  contest  began. 
The  second  frog  first  was  pinched,  and  jumped  moder 
ately  ;  then  they  pinched  the  Boeotian  frog.  And  he 
gathered  himself  for  a  leap,  and  used  the  utmost  effort, 
but  he  could  not  move  his  body  the  least.  So  the 
Athenian  departed  with  the  money.  When  he  was 
gone  the  Boeotian,  wondering  what  was  the  matter 
with  the  frog,  lifted  him  up  and  examined  him.  And 
being  turned  upside  down,  he  opened  his  mouth  and 
vomited  out  the  stones. 

And  here  is  the  way  it  happened  in  Cali 
fornia  : 

FROM   "THE  CELEBRATED  JUMPING   FROG  OF  CALA- 
VERAS  COUNTY." 

Well,  thish-yer  Smiley  had  rat-tarriers,  and  chicken 
cocks,  and  tom-cats,  and  all  them  kind  of  things,  till 
you  couldn't  rest,  and  you  couldn't  fetch  nothing  for 
him  to  bet  on  but  he'd  match  you.  He  ketched  a 
frog  one  day,  and  took  him  home,  and  said  he  cal'lated 
to  educate  him ;  and  so  he  never  done  nothing  for 
three  months  but  set  in  his  back  yard  and  learn  that 


154  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

frog  to  jump.  And  you  bet  you  he  did  learn  him,  too. 
He'd  give  him  a  little  punch  behind,  and  the  next 
minute  you'd  see  that  frog  whirling  in  the  air  like  a 
doughnut — see  him  turn  one  summerset,  or  maybe  a 
couple  if  he  got  a  good  start,  and  come  down  flat- 
footed  and  all  right,  like  a  cat.  He  got  him  up  so  in 
the  matter  of  ketching  flies,  and  kep'  him  in  practice 
so  constant,  that  he'd  nail  a  fly  every  time  as  fur  as 
he  could  see  him.  Smiley  said  all  a  frog  wanted  was 
education,  and  he  could  do  'most  anything  —  and  I 
believe  him.  Why,  I've  seen  him  set  Dan'l  Webster 
down  here  on  this  floor — Dan'l  Webster  was  the  name 
of  the  frog  —  and  sing  out  "  Flies,  Dan'l,  flies !"  and 
quicker'n  you  could  wink  he'd  spring  straight  up  and 
snake  a  fly  off'n  the  counter  there,  and  flop  down  on 
the  floor  ag'in  as  solid  as  a  gob  of  mud,  and  fall  to 
scratching  the  side  of  his  head  with  his  hind  foot  as 
indifferent  as  if  he  hadn't  no  idea  he'd  been  doin'  any 
more'n  any  frog  might  do.  You  never  see  a  frog  so 
modest  and  straightfor'ard  as  he  was,  for  all  he  was 
so  gifted.  And  when  it  come  to  fair  and  square  jump 
ing  on  a  dead  level,  he  could  get  over  more  ground 
at  one  straddle  than  any  animal  of  his  breed  you  ever 
see.  Jumping  on  a  dead  level  was  his  strong  suit, 
you  understand ;  and  when  it  came  to  that,  Smiley 
would  ante  up  money  on  him  as  long  as  he  had  a  red. 
Smiley  was  monstrous  proud  of  his  frog,  and  well  he 
might  be,  for  fellers  that  had  travelled  and  been  every- 
wheres  all  said  he  laid  over  any  frog  that  ever  they 
see. 

Well,  Smiley  kep'  the  beast  in  a  little  lattice  box, 
and  he  used  to  fetch  him  down-town  sometimes  and 
lay  for  a  bet.  One  day  a  feller — a  stranger  in  the 


PRIVATE    HISTORY   OF  "JUMPING    FROG  "  STORY     155 

camp,  he  was— come  acrost  him  with  his  box,  and 

says: 

"  What  might  it  be  that  you've  got  in  the  box  ?" 

And  Smiley  says,  sorter  indifferent-like,  "  It  might 
be  a  parrot,  or  it  might  be  a  canary,  maybe,  but  it 
ain't — it's  only  just  a  frog." 

And  the  feller  took  it,  and  looked  at  it  careful,  and 
turned  it  round  this  way  and  that,  and  says,  "  H'm— 
so  'tis.  Well,  what's  he  good  for  ?" 

"  Well,"  Smiley  says,  easy  and  careless,  "  he's  good 
enough  for  one  thing,  I  should  judge— he  can  outjump 
any  frog  in  Calaveras  County." 

The  feller  took  the  box  again  and  took  another 
long,  particular  look,  and  give  it  back  to  Smiley  and 
says,  very  deliberate,  "  Well,"  he  says,  "  I  don't  see  no 
p'ints  about  that  frog  that's  any  bctter'n  any  other 
frog." 

"  Maybe  you  don't,"  Smiley  says.  "  Maybe  you 
understand  frogs  and  maybe  you  don't  understand 
'em ;  maybe  you've  had  experience,  and  maybe  you 
ain't  only  a  amature,  as  it  were.  Anyways,  I've  got 
my  opinion,  and  I'll  resk  forty  dollars  that  he  can  out- 
jump  any  frog  in  Calaveras  County." 

And  the  feller  studies  a  minute,  and  then  says,  kind 
er  sad  like,  "Well,  I'm  only  a  stranger  here,  and  I 
ain't  got  no  frog,  but  if  I  had  a  frog  I'd  bet  you." 

And  then  Smiley  says :  "  That's  all  right— that's  all 
right— if  you'll  hold  my  box  a  minute,  I'll  go  and  get 
you  a  frog."  And  so  the  feller  took  the  box  and  put 
up  his  forty  dollars  along  with  Smiley's  and  set  down 
to  wait. 

So  he  set  there  a  good  while  thinking  and  thinking 
to  hisself,  and  then  he  got  the  frog  out  and  prized  his 


HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

mouth  open  and  took  a  teaspoon  and  filled  him  full 
of  quail  shot — filled  him  pretty  near  up  to  his  chin — 
and  set  him  on  the  floor.  Smiley  he  went  to  the 
swamp  and  slopped  around  in  the  mud  for  a  long 
time,  and  finally  he  ketched  a  frog  and  fetched  him 
in  and  give  him  to  this  feller,  and  says : 

"  Now,  if  you're  ready,  set  him  alongside  of  Dan'l, 
with  his  fore-paws  just  even  with  DanTs,  and  I'll  give 
the  word."  Then  he  says,  "  One — two — three— -git!" 
and  him  and  the  feller  touched  up  the  frogs  from  be 
hind,  and  the  new  frog  hopped  off  lively;  but  Dan'l 
give  a  heave,  and  hysted  up  his  shoulders — so — like  a 
Frenchman,  but  it  warn't  no  use — he  couldn't  budge  ; 
he  was  planted  as  solid  as  a  church,  and  he  couldn't 
no  more  stir  than  if  he  was  anchored  out.  Smiley 
was  a  good  deal  surprised,  and  he  was  disgusted,  too, 
but  he  didn't  have  no  idea  what  the  matter  was,  of 
course. 

The  feller  took  the  money  and  started  away ;  and 
when  he  was  going  out  at  the  door  he  sorter  jerked 
his  thumb  over  his  shoulder — so — at  Dan'l,  and  says 
again,  very  deliberate:  "Well,"  he  says,  "/  don't  see 
no  p'ints  about  that  frog  that's  any  better'n  any  other 
frog." 

Smiley  he  stood  scratching  his  head  and  looking 
down  at  Dan'l  a  long  time,  and  at  last  he  says,  "  I  do 
wonder  what  in  the  nation  that  frog  throw'd  off  for — 
I  wonder  if  there  ain't  something  the  matter  with 
him  —  he  'pears  to  look  mighty  baggy,  somehow." 
And  he  ketched  Dan'l  by  the  nap  of  the  neck,  and 
hefted  him,  and  says, "  Why,  blame  my  cats  if  he  don't 
weigh  five  pound  !"  and  turned  him  upside  down,  and 
he  belched  out  a  double  handful  of  shot.  And  then 


PRIVATE   HISTORY   OF  "JUMPING    FROG "  STORY     157 

he  see  how  it  was,  and  he  was  the  maddest  man — he 
set  the  frog  down  and  took  out  after  that  feller,  but 
he  never  ketched  him. 

The  resemblances  are  deliciously  exact. 
There  you  have  the  wily  Boeotian  and  the 
wily  Jim  Smiley  waiting — two  thousand  years 
apart — and  waiting,  each  equipped  with  his  frog 
and  "laying"  for  the  stranger.  A  contest  is 
proposed — for  money.  The  Athenian  would 
take  a  chance  "  if  the  other  would  fetch  him 
a  frog  "  ;  the  Yankee  says :  "  I'm  only  a  stran 
ger  here,  and  I  ain't  got  no  frog ;  but  if  I  had 
a  frog  I'd  bet  you."  The  wily  Boeotian  and 
the  wily  Californian,  with  that  vast  gulf  of  two 
thousand  years  between,  retire  eagerly  and  go 
frogging  in  the  marsh ;  the  Athenian  and  the 
Yankee  remain  behind  and  work  a  base  ad 
vantage,  the  one  with  pebbles,  the  other  with 
shot.  Presently  the  contest  began.  In  the 
one  case  "  they  pinched  the  Boeotian  frog " ; 
in  the  other,  "  him  and  the  feller  touched  up 
the  frogs  from  behind."  The  Boeotian  frog 
"  gathered  himself  for  a  leap  "  (you  can  just  see 
him !),  but  "  could  not  move  his  body  in  the 
least " ;  the  Californian  frog  "  give  a  heave, 
but  it  warn't  no  use — he  couldn't  budge."  In 
both  the  ancient  and  the  modern  cases  the 
strangers  departed  with  the  money.  The  Boeo- 


158  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

tian  and  the  Californian  wonder  what  is  the 
matter  with  their  frogs ;  they  lift  them  and 
examine ;  they  turn  them  upside  down  and 
out  spills  the  informing  ballast. 

Yes,  the  resemblances  are  curiously  exact. 
I  used  to  tell  the  story  of  the  Jumping  Frog 
in  San  Francisco,  and  presently  Artemus  Ward 
came  along  and  wanted  it  to  help  fill  out  a  lit 
tle  book  which  he  was  about  to  publish ;  so 
I  wrote  it  out  and  sent  it  to  his  publisher, 
Carleton ;  but  Carleton  thought  the  book  had 
enough  matter  in  it,  so  he  gave  the  story  to 
Henry  Clapp  as  a  present,  and  Clapp  put  it  in 
his  Saturday  Press,  and  it  killed  that  paper 
with  a  suddenness  that  was  beyond  praise.  At 
least  the  paper  died  with  that  issue,  and  none 
but  envious  people  have  ever  tried  to  rob  me 
of  the  honor  and  credit  of  killing  it.  The 
"  Jumping  Frog  "  was  the  first  piece  of  writ 
ing  of  mine  that  spread  itself  through  the 
newspapers  and  brought  me  into  public  notice. 
Consequently,  the  Saturday  Press  was  a  cocoon 
and  I  the  worm  in  it ;  also,  I  was  the  gay-col 
ored  literary  moth  which  its  death  set  free. 
This  simile  has  been  used  before. 

Early  in  '66  the  "  Jumping  Frog"  was  is- 
sued  in  book  form,  with  other  sketches  of  mine. 
A  year  or  two  later  Madame  Blanc  translated 


PRIVATE    HISTORY   OF  "JUMPING   FROG "  STORY     159 

it  into  French  and  published  it  in  the  Revue 
des  Deux  Mondes,  but  the  result  was  not  what 
should  have  been  expected,  for  the  Revue 
struggled  along  and  pulled  through,  and  is 
alive  yet.  I  think  the  fault  must  have  been 
in  the  translation.  I  ought  to  have  translated 
it  myself.  I  think  so  because  I  examined  into 
the  matter  and  finally  retranslated  the  sketch 
from  the  French  back  into  English,  to  see  what 
the  trouble  was ;  that  is,  to  see  just  what 
sort  of  a  focus  the  French  people  got  upon  it. 
Then  the  mystery  was  explained.  In  French 
the  story  is  too  confused,  and  chaotic,  and 
unreposeful,  and  ungrammatical,  and  insane; 
consequently  it  could  only  cause  grief  and 
sickness — it  could  not  kill.  A  glance  at  my 
re-translation  will  show  the  reader  that  this 
must  be  true. 

[My  Retranslating 
THE  FROG  JUMPING  OF  THE  COUNTY  OF  CALAVERAS. 

Eh  bien  !  this  Smiley  nourished  some  terriers  a  rats, 
and  some  cocks  of  combat,  and  some  cats,  and  all  sort 
of  things ;  and  with  his  rage  of  betting  one  no  had 
more  of  repose.  He  trapped  one  day  a  frog  and  him 
imported  with  him  (et  1'emporta  chez  lui)  saying  that 
he  pretended  to  make  his  education.  You  me  believe 
if  you  will,  but  during  three  months  he  not  has  noth 
ing  done  but  to  him  apprehend  to  jump  (apprendre  a 
sauter)  in  a  court  retired  of  her  mansion  (de  sa  maison). 


l6o  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

And  I  you  respond  that  he  have  succeeded.  He  him 
gives  a  small  blow  by  behind,  and  the  instant  after 
you  shall  see  the  frog  turn  in  the  air  like  a  grease- 
biscuit,  make  one  summersault,  sometimes  two,  when 
she  was  well  started,  and  re-fall  upon  his  feet  like  a 
cat.  He  him  had  accomplished  in  the  art  of  to  gob 
ble  the  flies  (gober  des  mouches),  and  him  there  exer 
cised  continually— so  well  that  a  fly  at  the  most  far 
that  she  appeared  was  a  fly  lost.  Smiley  had  custom 
to  say  that  all  which  lacked  to  a  frog  it  was  the  edu 
cation,  but  with  the  education  she  could  do  nearly  all 
— and  I  him  believe.  Tenez,  I  him  have  seen  pose 
Daniel  Webster  there  upon  this  plank — Daniel  Webster 
was  the  name  of  the  frog — and  to  him  sing,  "Some 
flies,  Daniel,  some  flies  !" — in  a  flash  of  the  eye  Daniel 
had  bounded  and  seized  a  fly  here  upon  the  counter, 
then  jumped  anew  at  the  earth,  where  he  rested  truly 
to  himself  scratch  the  head  with  his  behind-foot,  as  if 
he  no  had  not  the  least  idea  of  his  superiority.  Never 
you  not  have  seen  frog  as  modest,  as  natural,  sweet 
as  she  was.  And  when  he  himself  agitated  to  jump 
purely  and  simply  upon  plain  earth,  she  does  more 
ground  in  one  jump  than  any  beast  of  his  species  than 
you  can  know. 

To  jump  plain — this  was  his  strong.  When  he  him 
self  agitated  for  that  Smiley  multiplied  the  bets  upon 
her  as  long  as  there  to  him  remained  a  red.  It  must 
to  know,  Smiley  was  monstrously  proud  of  his  frog, 
and  he  of  it  was  right,  for  some  men  who  were  trav 
elled,  who  had  all  seen,  said  that  they  to  him  would 
be  injurious  to  him  compare  to  another  frog.  Smiley 
guarded  Daniel  in  a  little  box  latticed  which  he  car 
ried  bytimes  to  the  village  for  some  bet. 


PRIVATE    HISTORY   OF  "JUMPING   FROG "  STORY     l6l 

One  day  an  individual  stranger  at  the  camp  him  ar 
rested  with  his  box  and  him  said  : 

"  What  is  this  that  you  have  then  shut  up  there 
within  ?" 

Smiley  said,  with  an  air  indifferent: 

"  That  could  be  a  paroquet,  or  a  syringe  (ou  un  serin\ 
but  this  no  is  nothing  of  such,  it  not  is  but  a  frog." 

The  individual  it  took,  it  regarded  with  care,  it 
turned  from  one  side  and  from  the  other,  then  he 
said : 

"Ticns  !  in  effect ! — At  what  is  she  good  ?" 

"  My  God !"  respond  Smiley,  always  with  an  air  dis 
engaged,  "  she  is  good  for  one  thing,  to  my  notice  (d 
mon  avis),  she  can  batter  in  jumping  (elle  pent  batter 
en  saittant)  all  frogs  of  the  county  of  Calaveras." 

The  individual  re-took  the  box,  it  examined  of  new 
longly,  and  it  rendered  to  Smiley  in  saying  with  an 
air  deliberate : 

"Eh  bicn!  I  no  saw  not  that  that  frog  had  nothing 
of  better  than  each  frog."  (Je  ne  vozs  pas  que  cette 
grcnouille  ait  rien  de  micux  quaucune  grenouille).  [If 
that  isn't  grammar  gone  to  seed,  then  I  count  myself 
no  judge. — M.  T.] 

"Possible  that  you  not  it  saw  not,"  said  Smiley, 
"  possible  that  you — you  comprehend  frogs  ;  possible 
that  you  not  you  there  comprehend  nothing;  possible 
that  you  had  of  the  experience,  and  possible  that  you 
not  be  but  an  amateur.  Of  all  manner  (De  toute  ma- 
m'cre)  I  bet  forty  dollars  that  she  batter  in  jumping 
no  matter  which  frog  of  the  county  of  Calaveras." 

The  individual  reflected  a  second,  and  said  like  sad : 

"  I  not  am  but  a  stranger  here,  I  no  have  not  a  frog ; 
but  if  I  of  it  had  one,  I  would  embrace  the  bet." 
ii 


HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 


"  Strong,  well !"  respond  Smiley ;  "  nothing  of  more 
facility.  If  you  will  hold  my  box  a  minute,  I  go  you 
to  search  a  frog  (firai  vous  chercher)." 

Behold,  then,  the  individual,  who  guards  the  box, 
who  puts  his  forty  dollars  upon  those  of  Smiley,  and 
who  attends  (et  qui  attend}.  He  attended  enough 
longtimes,  reflecting  all  solely.  And  figure  you  that 
he  takes  Daniel,  him  opens  the  mouth  by  force  and 
with  a  teaspoon  him  fills  with  shot  of  the  hunt,  even 
him  fills  jus-t  to  the  chin,  then  he  him  puts  by  the 
earth.  Smiley  during  these  times  was  at  slopping  in 
a  swamp.  Finally  he  trapped  (attrape)  a  frog,  him  car 
ried  to  that  individual,  and  said  : 

"  Now  if  you  be  ready,  put  him  all  against  Daniel, 
with  their  before-feet  upon  the  same  line,  and  I  give 
the  signal  " — then  he  added  :  "  One,  two,  three — ad 
vance  !" 

Him  and  the  individual  touched  their  frogs  by  be 
hind,  and  the  frog  new  put  to  jump  smartly,  but  Dan 
iel  himself  lifted  ponderously,  exalted  the  shoulders 
thus,  like  a  Frenchman — to  what  good  ?  he  could  not 
budge,  he  is  planted  solid  like  a  church,  he  not  ad 
vance  no  more  than  if  one  him  had  put  at  the  anchor. 

Smiley  was  surprised  and  disgusted,  but  he  not  him 
self  doubted  not  of  the  turn  being  intended  (mats  il 
ne  se  doutait  pas  du  tour  bien  entendii).  The  individual 
empocketed  the  silver,  himself  with  it  went,  and  of  it 
himself  in  going  is  that  he  no  gives  not  a  jerk  of  thumb 
over  the  shoulder — like  that — at  the  poor  Daniel,  in 
saying  with  his  air  deliberate — (L'individu  empoche 
V argent  s'en  va  et  en  sen  allant  est  ce  qiiil  ne  donne 
pas  un  coup  de  pouce  par-dessus  Fepaule,  comme  $a,  au 
pauvre  Daniel,  en  dtsant  de  son  air 


PRIVATE    HISTORY   OF  "JUMPING    FROG "  STORY     163 

"  Eh  bicn  !  /  no  see  not  that  that  frog  has  nothing  of 
better  than  another" 

Smiley  himself  scratched  longtimes  the  head,  the 
eyes  fixed  upon  Daniel,  until  that  which  at  last  he 
said : 

"  I  me  demand  how  the  devil  it  makes  itself  that 
this  beast  has  refused.  Is  it  that  she  had  something  ? 
One  would  believe  that  she  is  stuffed." 

He  grasped  Daniel  by  the  skin  of  the  neck,  him 
lifted  and  said : 

"  The  wolf  me  bite  if  he  no  weigh  not  five  pounds." 

He  him  reversed  and  the  unhappy  belched  two 
handfuls  of  shot  (et  lemalhcitreux,  etc.). — When  Smiley 
recognized  how  it  was,  he  was  like  mad.  He  deposited 
his  frog  by  the  earth  and  ran  after  that  individual,  but 
he  not  him  caught  never. 

It  may  be  that  there  are  people  who  can 
translate  better  than  I  can,  but  I  am  not  ac 
quainted  with  them. 

So  ends  the  private  and  public  history  of 
the  Jumping  Frog  of  Calaveras  County,  an  in 
cident  which  has  this  unique  feature  about  it 
—that  it  is  both  old  and  new,  a  "chestnut" 
and  not  a  "  chestnut " ;  for  it  was  original 
when  it  happened  two  thousand  years  ago, 
and  was  again  original  when  it  happened  in 
California  in  our  own  time. 


MENTAL  TELEGRAPHY  AGAIN 


MENTAL  TELEGRAPHY  AGAIN 

I  HAVE  three  or  four  curious  incidents  to 
tell  about.  They  seem  to  come  under  the 
head  of  what  I  named  "  Mental  Telegraphy  " 
in  a  paper  written  seventeen  years  ago,  and 
published  long  afterwards.* 

Several  years  ago  I  made  a  campaign  on  the 
platform  with  Mr.  George  W.  Cable.  In  Mon 
treal  we  were  honored  with  a  reception.  It 
began  at  two  in  the  afternoon  in  a  long  draw 
ing-room  in  the  Windsor  Hotel.  Mr.  Cable 
and  I  stood  at  one  end  of  this  room,  and  the 
ladies  and  gentlemen  entered  it  at  the  other 
end,  crossed  it  at  that  end,  then  came  up  the 
long  left-hand  side,  shook  hands  with  us,  said 
a  word  or  two,  and  passed  on,  in  the  usual 
way.  My  sight  is  of  the  telescopic  sort,  and 
I  presently  recognized  a  familiar  face  among 
the  throng  of  strangers  drifting  in  at  the  dis- 

*The  paper  entitled  "  Mental  Telegraphy,"  which  origin 
ally  appeared  in  HARPER'S  MAGAZINE  for  December  1893, 
is  included  in  the  volume  entitled  The  American  Claimant, 
and  Other  Stories  and  Sketches. 


1 68  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

tant  door,  and  I  said  to  myself,  with  surprise 
and  high  gratification, "  That  is  Mrs.  R. ;  I  had 
forgotten  that  she  was  a  Canadian."  She  had 
been  a  great  friend  of  mine  in  Carson  City, 
Nevada,  in  the  early  days.  I  had  not  seen 
her  or  heard  of  her  for  twenty  years ;  I  had 
not  been  thinking  about  her ;  there  was  noth 
ing  to  suggest  her  to  me,  nothing  to  bring  her 
to  my  mind ;  in  fact,  to  me  she  had  long  ago 
ceased  to  exist,  and  had  disappeared  from  my 
consciousness.  But  I  knew  her  instantly;  and 
I  saw  her  so  clearly  that  I  was  able  to  note 
some  of  the  particulars  of  her  dress,  and  did 
note  them,  and  they  remained  in  my  mind.  I 
was  impatient  for  her  to  come.  In  the  midst 
of  the  hand-shakings  I  snatched  glimpses  of 
her  and  noted  her  progress  with  the  slow- 
moving  file  across  the  end  of  the  room  ;  then  I 
saw  her  start  up  the  side,  and  this  gave  me  a 
full  front  view  of  her  face.  I  saw  her  last 
when  she  was  within  twenty-five  feet  of  me. 
For  an  hour  I  kept  thinking  she  must  still  be 
in  the  room  somewhere  and  would  come  at 
last,  but  I  was  disappointed. 

When  I  arrived  in  the  lecture-hall  that  even 
ing  some  one  said :  "  Come  into  the  waiting- 
room  ;  there's  a  friend  of  yours  there  who 
wants  to  see  you.  You'll  not  be  introduced — 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY   AGAIN  169 

you  are  to  do  the  recognizing  without  help  if 
you  can." 

I  said  to  myself :  "  It  is  Mrs.  R. ;  I  sha'n't 
have  any  trouble." 

There  were  perhaps  ten  ladies  present,  all 
seated.  In  the  midst  of  them  was  Mrs.  R.,  as 
I  had  expected.  She  was  dressed  exactly  as 
she  was  when  I  had  seen  her  in  the  afternoon. 
I  went  forward  and  shook  hands  with  her  and 
called  her  by  name,  and  said  : 

"  I  knew  you  the  moment  you  appeared  at 
the  reception  this  afternoon." 

She  looked  surprised,  and  said :  "  But  I  was 
not  at  the  reception.  I  have  just  arrived 
from  Quebec,  and  have  not  been  in  town  an 
hour." 

It  was  my  turn  to  be  surprised  now.  I  said  : 
"  I  can't  help  it.  I  give  you  my  word  of  honor 
that  it  is  as  I  say.  I  saw  you  at  the  recep 
tion,  and  you  were  dressed  precisely  as  you 
are  now.  When  they  told  me  a  moment  ago 
that  I  should  find  a  friend  in  this  room,  your 
image  rose  before  me,  dress  and  all,  just  as  I 
had  seen  you  at  the  reception." 

Those  are  the  facts.  She  was  not  at  the  re 
ception  at  all,  or  anywhere  near  it ;  but  I  saw 
her  there  nevertheless,  and  most  clearly  and 
unmistakably.  To  that  I  could  make  oath. 


1 70  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

How  is  one  to  explain  this?  I  was  not 
thinking  of  her  at  the  time  ;  had  not  thought 
of  her  for  years.  But  she  had  been  thinking 
of  me,  no  doubt ;  did  her  thoughts  flit  through 
leagues  of  air  to  me,  and  bring  with  it  that 
clear  and  pleasant  vision  of  herself?  I  think 
so.  That  was  and  remains  my  sole  experience 
in  the  matter  of  apparitions — I  mean  appari 
tions  that  come  when  one  is  (ostensibly)  awake. 
I  could  have  been  asleep  for  a  moment ;  the 
apparition  could  have  been  the  creature  of  a 
dream.  Still,  that  is  nothing  to  the  point;  the 
feature  of  interest  is  the  happening  of  the 
thing  just  at  that  time,  instead  of  at  an  earlier 
or  later  time,  which  is  argument  that  its  origin 
lay  in  thought-transference. 

My  next  incident  will  be  set  aside  by  most 
persons  as  being  merely  a  "  coincidence,"  I 
suppose.  Years  ago  I  used  to  think  some 
times  of  making  a  lecturing  trip  through  the 
antipodes  and  the  borders  of  the  Orient,  but 
always  gave  up  the  idea,  partly  because  of  the 
great  length  of  the  journey  and  partly  be 
cause  my  wife  could  not  well  manage  to  go 
with  me.  Towards  the  end  of  last  January 
that  idea,  after  an  interval  of  years,  came  sud 
denly  into  my  head  again — forcefully,  too,  and 
without  any  apparent  reason.  Whence  came 


MENTAL   TELEGRAPHY   AGAIN  17 1 

it?     What  suggested  it?     I  will  touch  upon 
that  presently. 

I  was  at  that  time  where  I  am  now  —  in 
Paris.  I  wrote  at  once  to  Henry  M.  Stanley 
(London),  and  asked  him  some  questions  about 
his  Australian  lecture  tour,  and  inquired  who 
had  conducted  him  and  what  were  the  terms. 
After  a  day  or  two  his  answer  came.  It 
began : 

"  The  lecture  agent  for  Australia  and  New  Zealand 
\sflar  excellence  Mr.  R.  S.  Smythe,  of  Melbourne." 

He  added  his  itinerary,  terms,  sea  expenses, 
and  some  other  matters,  and  advised  me  to 
write  Mr.  Smythe,  which  I  did — February  3d. 
I  began  my  letter  by  saying  in  substance  that 
while  he  did  not  know  me  personally  we  had 
a  mutual  friend  in  Stanley,  and  that  would  an 
swer  for  an  introduction.  Then  I  proposed 
my  trip,  and  asked  if  he  would  give  me  the 
same  terms  which  he  had  given  Stanley. 

I  mailed  my  letter  to  Mr.  Smythe  February 
6th,  and  three  days  later  I  got  a  letter  from 
the  selfsame  Smythe,  dated  Melbourne,  Decem 
ber  i /th.  I  would  as  soon  have  expected  to 
get  a  letter  from  the  late  George  Washington. 
The  letter  began  somewhat  as  mine  to  him 
had  begun — with  a  self-introduction  : 


172  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

"  DEAR  MR.  CLEMENS,— It  is  so  long  since  Archibald 
Forbes  and  I  spent  that  pleasant  afternoon  in  your 
comfortable  house  at  Hartford  that  you  have  probably 
quite  forgotten  the  occasion." 

In  the  course  of  his  letter  this  occurs : 

"I  am  willing  to  give  you"  [here  he  named  the 
terms  which  he  had  given  Stanley]  "  for  an  antipodean 
tour  to  last,  say,  three  months." 

Here  was  the  single  essential  detail  of  my 
letter  answered  three  days  after  I  had  mailed 
my  inquiry.  I  might  have  saved  myself  the 
trouble  and  the  postage  —  and  a  few  years 
ago  I  would  have  done  that  very  thing,  for  I 
would  have  argued  that  my  sudden  and  strong 
impulse  to  write  and  ask  some  questions  of  a 
stranger  on  the  under  side  of  the  globe  meant 
that  the  impulse  came  from  that  stranger,  and 
that  he  would  answer  my  questions  of  his  own 
motion  if  I  would  let  him  alone. 

Mr.  Smythe's  letter  probably  passed  under 
my  nose  on  its  way  to  lose  three  weeks  trav 
elling  to  America  and  back,  and  gave  me  a 
whiff  of  its  contents  as  it  went  along.  Letters 
often  act  like  that.  Instead  of  the  thought 
coming  to  you  in  an  instant  from  Australia, 
the  (apparently)  unsentient  letter  imparts  it  to 
you  as  it  glides  invisibly  past  your  elbow  in 
the  mail-bag. 


((  UJ\ 

EGRAPHY    AC 


MENTAL   TELEGRAPHY   AGAIN  173 

Next  incident.  In  the  following  month — 
March — I  was  in  America.  I  spent  a  Sunday 
at  Irvington- on -the- Hudson  with  Mr.  John 
Brisben  Walker,  of  the  Cosmopolitan  magazine. 
We  came  into  New  York  next  morning,  and 
went  to  the  Century  Club  for  luncheon.  He 
said  some  praiseful  things  about  the  character 
of  the  club  and  the  orderly  serenity  and  pleas 
antness  of  its  quarters,  and  asked  if  I  had  never 
tried  to  acquire  membership  in  it.  I  said  I 
had  not,  and  that  New  York  clubs  were  a  con 
tinuous  expense  to  the  country  members  with 
out  being  of  frequent  use  or  benefit  to  them. 

"And  now  I've  got  an  idea!"  said  I. 
"  There's  the  Lotos — the  first  New  York  club 
I  was  ever  a  member  of  —  my  very  earliest 
love  in  that  line.  I  have  been  a  member  of 
it  for  considerably  more  than  twenty  years, 
yet  have  seldom  had  a  chance  to  look  in  and 
see  the  boys.  They  turn  gray  and  grow  old 
while  I  am  not  watching.  And  my  dues  go  on. 
I  am  going  to  Hartford  this  afternoon  for  a 
day  or  two,  but  as  soon  as  I  get  back  I  will 
go  to  John  Elderkin  very  privately  and  say: 
'  Remember  the  veteran  and  confer  distinction 
upon  him,  for  the  sake  of  old  times.  Make 
me  an  honorary  member  and  abolish  the  tax. 
If  you  haven't  any  such  thing  as  honorary 


174  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

membership,  all  the  better — create  it  for  my 
honor  and  glory.'  That  would  be  a  great  thing ; 
I  will  go  to  John  Elderkin  as  soon  as  I  get 
back  from  Hartford." 

I  took  the  last  express  that  afternoon,  first 
telegraphing  Mr.  F.  G.  Whitmore  to  come  and 
see  me  next  day.  When  he  came  he  asked: 

"  Did  you  get  a  letter  from  Mr.  John  Elder- 
kin,  secretary  of  the  Lotos  Club,  before  you 
left  New  York  ?" 

"No." 

"Then  it  just  missed  you.  If  I  had  known 
you  were  coming  I  would  have  kept  it.  It 
is  beautiful,  and  will  make  you  proud.  The 
Board  of  Directors,  by  unanimous  vote,  have 
made  you  a  life  member,  and  squelched  those 
dues ;  and  you  are  to  be  on  hand  and  receive 
your  distinction  on  the  night  of  the  3Oth, 
which  is  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  the 
founding  of  the  club,  and  it  will  not  surprise 
me  if  they  have  some  great  times  there." 

What  put  the  honorary  membership  in  my 
head  that  day  in  the  Century  Club?  for  I  had 
never  thought  of  it  before.  I  don't  know  what 
brought  the  thought  to  me  at  that  particular 
time  instead  of  earlier,  but  I  am  well  satisfied 
that  it  originated  with  the  Board  of  Directors, 
and  had  been  on  its  way  to  my  brain  through 


MENTAL   TELEGRAPHY  AGAIN  175 

the  air  ever  since  the  moment  that  saw  their 
vote  recorded. 

Another  incident.  I  was  in  Hartford  two 
or  three  days  as  a  guest  of  the  Rev.  Joseph  H. 
Twichell.  I  have  held  the  rank  of  Honorary 
Uncle  to  his  children  for  a  quarter  of  a  cen 
tury,  and  I  went  out  with  him  in  the  trolley- 
car  to  visit  one  of  my  nieces,  who  is  at  Miss 
Porter's  famous  school  in  Farmington.  The 
distance  is  eight  or  nine  miles.  On  the  way, 
talking,  I  illustrated  something  with  an  anec 
dote.  This  is  the  anecdote : 

Two  years  and  a  half  ago  I  and  the  family 
arrived  at  Milan  on  our  way  to  Rome,  and 
stopped  at  the  Continental.  After  dinner  I 
went  below  and  took  a  seat  in  the  stone-paved 
court,  where  the  customary  lemon-trees  stand 
in  the  customary  tubs,  and  said  to  myself, 
"  Now  this  is  comfort,  comfort  and  repose,  and 
nobody  to  disturb  it ;  I  do  not  know  anybody 
in  Milan." 

Then  a  young  gentleman  stepped  up  and 
shook  hands,  which  damaged  my  theory.  He 
said,  in  substance : 

"  You  won't  remember  me,  Mr.  Clemens,  but 
I  remember  you  very  well.  I  was  a  cadet  at 
West  Point  when  you  and  Rev.  Joseph  H. 
Twichell  came  there  some  years  ago  and  talked 


176  HOW   TO    TELL    A    STORY 

to  us  on  a  Hundredth  Night.  I  am  a  lieu 
tenant  in  the  regular  army  now,  and  my  name 
is  H.  I  am  in  Europe,  all  alone,  for  a  modest 
little  tour;  my  regiment  is  in  Arizona." 

We  became  friendly  and  sociable,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  talk  he  told  me  of  an  adventure 
which  had  befallen  him — about  to  this  effect : 

"  I  was  at  Bellagio,  stopping  at  the  big 
hotel  there,  and  ten  days  ago  I  lost  my  letter 
of  credit.  I  did  not  know  what  in  the  world 
to  do.  I  was  a  stranger;  I  knew  no  one  in 
Europe ;  I  hadn't  a  penny  in  my  pocket ;  I 
couldn't  even  send  a  telegram  to  London  to 
get  my  lost  letter  replaced  ;  my  hotel  bill  was 
a  week  old,  and  the  presentation  of  it  immi 
nent — so  imminent  that  it  could  happen  at 
any  moment  now.  I  was  so  frightened  that 
my  wits  seemed  to  leave  me.  I  tramped  and 
tramped,  back  and  forth,  like  a  crazy  person. 
If  anybody  approached  me  I  hurried  away, 
for  no  matter  what  a  person  looked  like,  I  took 
him  for  the  head  waiter  with  the  bill. 

"  I  was  at  last  in  such  a  desperate  state  that 
I  was  ready  to  do  any  wild  thing  that  promised 
even  the  shadow  of  help,  and  so  this  is  the 
insane  thing  that  I  did.  I  saw  a  family  lunch 
ing  at  a  small  table  on  the  veranda,  and  recog 
nized  their  nationality — Americans  —  father, 


MENTAL   TELEGRAPHY    AGAIN  177 

mother,  and  several  young  daughters — young, 
tastefully  dressed,  and  pretty — the  rule  with 
our  people.  I  went  straight  there  in  my  ci 
vilian  costume,  named  my  name,  said  I  was  a 
lieutenant  in  the  army,  and  told  my  story  and 
asked  for  help. 

"What  do  you  suppose  the  gentleman  did? 
But  you  would  not  guess  in  twenty  years.  He 
took  out  a  handful  of  gold  coin  and  told  me 
to  help  myself— freely.  That  is  what  he  did." 

The  next  morning  the  lieutenant  told  me 
his  new  letter  of  credit  had  arrived  in  the 
night,  so  we  strolled  to  Cook's  to  draw  money 
to  pay  back  the  benefactor  with.  We  got  it, 
and  then  went  strolling  through  the  great  ar 
cade.  Presently  he  said,  "  Yonder  they  are ; 
come  and  be  introduced."  I  was  introduced 
to  the  parents  and  the  young  ladies;  then 
we  separated,  and  I  never  saw  him  or  them 
any  m — 

"  Here  we  are  at  Farmington,"  said  Twichell, 
interrupting. 

We  left  the  trolley-car  and  tramped  through 
the  mud  a  hundred  yards  or  so  to  the  school, 
talking  about  the  time  we  and  Warner  walked 
out  there  years  ago,  and  the  pleasant  time  we 
had. 

We  had  a  visit  with  my  niece  in  the  parlor, 

12 


178  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

then  started  for  the  trolley  again.  Outside 
the  house  we  encountered  a  double  rank  of 
twenty  or  thirty  of  Miss  Porter's  young  ladies 
arriving  from  a  walk,  and  we  stood  aside,  os 
tensibly  to  let  them  have  room  to  file  past, 
but  really  to  look  at  them.  Presently  one  of 
them  stepped  out  of  the  rank  and  said : 

"You  don't  know  me,  Mr.  Twichell,  but  I 
know  your  daughter,  and  that  gives  me  the 
privilege  of  shaking  hands  with  you." 

Then  she  put  out  her  hand  to  me,  and  said : 

"And  I  wish  to  shake  hands  with  you  too, 
Mr.  Clemens.  You  don't  remember  me,  but 
you  were  introduced  to  me  in  the  arcade  in 
Milan  two  years  and  a  half  ago  by  Lieuten 
ant  H." 

What  had  put  that  story  into  my  head  after 
all  that  stretch  of  time?  Was  it  just  the 
proximity  of  that  young  girl,  or  was  it  merely 
an  odd  accident? 


WHAT  PAUL  BOURGET  THINKS  OF  US 


WHAT   PAUL   BOURGET  THINKS  OF   US 

HE  reports  the  American  joke  correctly.  In 
Boston  they  ask,  How  much  does  he  know? 
in  New  York,  How  much  is  he  worth  ?  in  Phil 
adelphia,  Who  were  his  parents  ?  And  when 
an  alien  observer  turns  his  telescope  upon  us 
— advertisedly  in  our  own  special  interest — a 
natural  apprehension  moves  us  to  ask,  What  is 
the  diameter  of  his  reflector? 

I  take  a  great  interest  in  M.  Bourget's  chap 
ters,  for  I  know  by  the  newspapers  that  there 
are  several  Americans  who  are  expecting  to 
get  a  whole  education  out  of  them ;  several 
who  foresaw,  and  also  foretold,  that  our  long 
night  was  over,  and  a  light  almost  divine  about 
to  break  upon  the  land. 

"His  utterances  concerning  us  are  bound  to  be  weigh 
ty  and  well  timed'' 

"He  gives  us  an  object-lesson  which  should  be  thought 
fully  and  profitably  studied" 

These  well-considered  and  important  ver- 


l82  HOW  TO    TELL   A   STORY 

diets  were  of  a  nature  to  restore  public  confi 
dence,  which  had  been  disquieted  by  question 
ings  as  to  whether  so  young  a  teacher  would 
be  qualified  to  take  so  large  a  class  as  70,000,- 
ooo,  distributed  over  so  extensive  a  school- 
house  as  America,  and  pull  it  through  without 
assistance. 

I  was  even  disquieted  myself,  although  I  am 
of  a  cold,  calm  temperament,  and  not  easily 
disturbed.  I  feared  for  my  country.  And  I 
was  not  wholly  tranquillized  by  the  verdicts 
rendered  as  above.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
there  was  still  room  for  doubt.  In  fact,  in 
looking  the  ground  over  I  became  more  dis 
turbed  than  I  was  before.  Many  worrying 
questions  came  up  in  my  mind.  Two  were 
prominent.  Where  had  the  teacher  gotten 
his  equipment  ?  What  was  his  method  ? 

He  had  gotten  his  equipment  in  France. 

Then  as  to  his  method :  I  saw  by  his  own 
intimations  that  he  was  an  Observer,  and  had 
a  System — that  used  by  naturalists  and  other 
scientists.  The  naturalist  collects  many  bugs 
and  reptiles  and  butterflies  and  studies  their 
ways  a  long  time  patiently.  By  this  means  he 
is  presently  able  to  group  these  creatures  into 
families  and  subdivisions  of  families  by  nice 
shadings  of  differences  observable  in  their  char- 


WHAT   PAUL   BOURGET   THINKS    OF    US         183 

acters.  Then  he  labels  all  those  shaded  bugs 
and  things  with  nicely  descriptive  group  names, 
and  is  now  happy,  for  his  great  work  is  com 
pleted,  and  as  a  result  he  intimately  knows 
every  bug  and  shade  of  a  bug  there,  inside  and 
out.  It  may  be  true,  but  a  person  who  was 
not  a  naturalist  would  feel  safer  about  it  if  he 
had  the  opinion  of  the  bug.  I  think  it  is  a 
pleasant  System,  but  subject  to  error. 

The  Observer  of  Peoples  has  to  be  a  Classi 
fier,  a  Grouper,  a  Deducer,  a  Generalizer,  a 
Psychologizer ;  and,  first  and  last,  a  Thinker. 
He  has  to  be  all  these,  and  when  he  is  at 
home,  observing  his  own  folk,  he  is  often  able 
to  prove  competency.  But  history  has  shown 
that  when  he  is  abroad  observing  unfamiliar 
peoples  the  chances  are  heavily  against  him. 
He  is  then  a  naturalist  observing  a  bug,  with 
no  more  than  a  naturalist's  chance  of  being 
able  to  tell  the  bug  anything  new  about  itself, 
and  no  more  than  a  naturalist's  chance  of  be 
ing  able  to  teach  it  any  new  ways  which  it 
will  prefer  to  its  own. 

To  return  to  that  first  question.  M.Bourget, 
as  teacher,  would  simply  be  France  teaching 
America.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the  outlook 
was  dark  —  almost  Egyptian,  in  fact.  What 
would  the  new  teacher,  representing  France, 


184  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

teach  us?  Railroading?  No.  France  knows 
nothing  valuable  about  railroading.  Steam- 
shipping?  No.  France  has  no  superiorities 
over  us  in  that  matter.  Steamboating?  No. 
French  steamboating  is  still  of  Fulton's  date — 
1809.  Postal  service  ?  No.  France  is  a  back 
number  there.  Telegraphy  ?  No,  we  taught 
her  that  ourselves.  Journalism  ?  No.  Mag- 
azining?  No,  that  is  our  own  specialty.  Gov 
ernment  ?  No  ;  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity, 
Nobility,  Democracy,  Adultery — the  system  is 
too  variegated  for  our  climate.  Religion? 
No,  not  variegated  enough  for  our  climate. 
Morals?  No,  we  cannot  rob  the  poor  to  en 
rich  ourselves.  Novel- writing?  No.  M. 
Bourget  and  the  others  know  only  one  plan, 
and  when  that  is  expurgated  there  is  nothing 
left  of  the  book. 

I  wish  I  could  think  what  he  is  going  to 
teach  us.  Can  it  be  Deportment?  But  he 
experimented  in  that  at  Newport  and  failed 
to  give  satisfaction,  except  to  a  few.  Those 
few  are  pleased.  They  are  enjoying  their  joy 
as  well  as  they  can.  They  confess  their  hap 
piness  to  the  interviewer.  They  feel  pretty 
striped,  but  they  remember  with  reverent  rec 
ognition  that  they  had  sugar  between  the  cuts. 
True,  sugar  with  sand  in  it,  but  sugar.  And 


WHAT    PAUL    BOURGET   THINKS    OF    US         185 

true,  they  had  some  trouble  to  tell  which  was 
sugar  and  which  was  sand,  because  the  sugar 
itself  looked  just  like  the  sand,  and  also  had  a 
gravelly  taste ;  still,  they  knew  that  the  sugar 
was  there,  and  would  have  been  very  good 
sugar  indeed  if  it  had  been  screened.  Yes, 
they  are  pleased  ;  not  noisily  so,  but  pleased  ; 
invaded,  or  streaked,  as  one  may  say,  with  lit 
tle  recurrent  shivers  of  joy — subdued  joy,  so 
to  speak,  not  the  overdone  kind.  And  they 
commune  together,  these,  and  massage  each 
other  with  comforting  sayings,  in  a  sweet  spirit 
of  resignation  and  thankfulness,  mixing  these 
elements  in  the  same  proportions  as  the  sugar 
and  the  sand,  as  a  memorial,  and  saying,  the 
one  to  the  other  and  to  the  interviewer :  "  It 
was  severe — yes,  it  was  bitterly  severe  ;  but  oh, 
how  true  it  was ;  and  it  will  do  us  so  much 
good !" 

If  it  isn't  Deportment,  what  is  left?  It  was 
at  this  point  that  I  seemed  to  get  on  the  right 
track  at  last.  M.  Bourget  would  teach  us  to 
know  ourselves  ;  that  was  it:  he  \vould  reveal 
us  to  ourselves.  That  would  be  an  education. 
He  would  explain  us  to  ourselves.  Then  we 
should  understand  ourselves  ;  and  after  that 
be  able  to  go  on  more  intelligently. 

It  seemed  a  doubtful  scheme.     He  could 


1 86  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

explain  us  to  /myself —  that  would  be  easy. 
That  would  be  the  same  as  the  naturalist  ex 
plaining  the  bug  to  himself.  But  to  explain 
the  bug  to  the  bug — that  is  quite  a  different 
matter.  The  bug  may  not  know  himself  per 
fectly,  but  he  knows  himself  better  than  the 
naturalist  can  know  him,  at  any  rate. 

-A  foreigner  can  photograph  the  exteriors  of 
a  nation,  but  I  think  that  that  is  as  far  as  he 
can  get.  I  think  that  no  foreigner  can  report 
its  interior  —  its  soul,  its  life,  its  speech,  its 
thought.  I  think  that  a  knowledge  of  these 
things  is  acquirable  in  only  one  way ;  not  two 
or  four  or  six — absorption;  years  and  years  of 
unconscious  absorption ;  years  and  years  of 
intercourse  with  the  life  concerned  ;  of  living 
it,  indeed  ;  sharing  personally  in  its  shames 
and  prides,  its  joys  and  griefs,  its  loves  and 
hates,  its  prosperities  and  reverses,  its  shows 
and  shabbinesses,  its  deep  patriotisms,  its  whirl 
winds  of  political  passion,  its  adorations — of 
flag,  and  heroic  dead,  and  the  glory  of  the  na 
tional  name.  Observation?  Of  what  real 
value  is  it?  One  learns  peoples  through  the 
heart,  not  the  eyes  or  the  intellect. 

There  is  only  one  expert  who  is  qualified  to 
examine  the  souls  and  the  life  of  a  people  and 
make  a  valuable  report — the  native  novelist. 


WHAT   PAUL    BOURGET   THINKS   OF   US         187 

This  expert  is  so  rare  that  the  most  populous 
country  can  never  have  fifteen  conspicuously 
and  confessedly  competent  ones  in  stock  at 
one  time.  This  native  specialist  is  not  quali 
fied  to  begin  work  until  he  has  been  absorb 
ing  during  twenty-five  years.  How  much  of 
his  competency  is  derived  from  conscious  "  ob 
servation"?  The  amount  is  so  slight  that  it 
counts  for  next  to  nothing  in  the  equipment. 
Almost  the  whole  capital  of  the  novelist  is  the 
slow  accumulation  of  unconscious  observation 
— absorption.  The  native  expert's  intentional 
observation  of  manners,  speech,  character,  and 
ways  of  life  can  have  value,  for  the  native 
knows  what  they  mean  without  having  to 
cipher  out  the  meaning.  But  I  should  be  as 
tonished  to  see  a  foreigner  get  at  the  right 
meanings,  catch  the  elusive  shades  of  these 
subtle  things.  Even  the  native  novelist  be 
comes  a  foreigner,  with  a  foreigner's  limita 
tions,  when  he  steps  from  the  State  whose  life 
is  familiar  to  him  into  a  State  whose  life  he 
has  not  lived.  Bret  Harte  got  his  California 
and  his  Californians  by  unconscious  absorp 
tion,  and  put  both  of  them  into  his  tales  alive. 
But  when  he  came  from  the  Pacific  to  the  At 
lantic  and  tried  to  do  Newport  life  from  study 
— conscious  observation — his  failure  was  abso- 


1 88  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

lutely  monumental.  Newport  is  a  disastrous 
place  for  the  unacclimated  observer,  evidently. 
To  return  to  novel-building.  Does  the  na 
tive  novelist  try  to  generalize  the  nation  ?  No, 
he  lays  plainly  before  you  the  ways  and  speech 
and  life  of  a  few  people  grouped  in  a  certain 
place — his  own  place — and  that  is  one  book. 
In  time  he  and  his  brethren  will  report  to  you 
the  life  and  the  people  of  the  whole  nation — 
the  life  of  a  group  in  a  New  England  village ; 
in  a  New  York  village ;  in  a  Texan  village ; 
in  an  Oregon  village  ;  in  villages  in  fifty  States 
andTerritories;  then  the  farm-life  in  fifty  States 
and  Territories ;  a  hundred  patches  of  life  and 
groups  of  people  in  a  dozen  widely  separated 
cities.  And  the  Indians  will  be  attended  to ; 
and  the  cowboys ;  and  the  gold  and  silver 
miners ;  and  the  negroes ;  and  the  Idiots  and 
Congressmen  ;  and  the  Irish,  the  Germans,  the 
Italians,  the  Swedes,  the  French,  the  China 
men,  the  Greasers ;  and  the  Catholics,  the 
Methodists,  the  Presbyterians,  the  Congrega- 
tionalists,  the  Baptists,  the  Spiritualists,  the 
Mormons,  the  Shakers,  the  Quakers,  the  Jews, 
the  Campbellites,  the  infidels,  the  Christian 
Scientists,  the  Mind-Curists,  the  Faith-Curists, 
the  train-robbers,  the  White  Caps,  the  Moon 
shiners.  And  when  a  thousand  able  novels 


WHAT   PAUL   BOURGET   THINKS   OF   US         189 

have  been  written,  there  you  have  the  soul  of 
the  people,  the  life  of  the  people,  the  speech 
of  the  people  ;  and  not  anywhere  else  can  these 
be  had.  And  the  shadings  of  character,  man 
ners,  feelings,  ambitions,  will  be  infinite. 

"  The  nature  of  a  people  is  always  of  a  similar  shade 
in  its  vices  and  its  virtues,  in  its  frivolities  and  in  its 
labor.  //  is  this  physiognomy  which  it  is  necessary  to 
discover,  and  every  document  is  good,  from  the  hall 
of  a  casino  to  the  church,  from  the  foibles  of  a  fash 
ionable  woman  to  the  suggestions  of  a  revolutionary 
leader.  I  am  therefore  quite  sure  that  this  American 
soul,  the  principal  interest  and  the  great  object  of  my 
voyage,  appears  behind  the  records  of  Newport  for 
those  who  choose  to  see  it." — M.  Paul  B  our  get. 

[The  italics  are  mine.]  It  is  a  large  con 
tract  which  he  has  undertaken.  "  Records  " 
is  a  pretty  poor  word  there,  but  I  think  the 
use  of  it  is  due  to  hasty  translation.  In  the 
original  the  word  is  fastes.  I  think  M.  Bour- 
get  meant  to  suggest  that  he  expected  to  find 
the  great  "American  soul"  secreted  behind 
the  ostentations  of  Newport ;  and  that  he  was 
going  to  get  it  out  and  examine  it,  and  gener 
alize  it,  and  psychologize  it,  and  make  it  reveal 
to  him  its  hidden  vast  mystery :  "  the  nature 
of  the  people"  of  the  United  States  of  Amer 
ica.  We  have  been  accused  of  being  a  nation 


190  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

addicted  to  inventing  wild  schemes.  I  trust 
that  we  shall  be  allowed  to  retire  to  second 
place  now. 

There  isn't  a  single  human  characteristic 
that  can  be  safely  labelled  "  American."  There 
isn't  a  single  human  ambition,  or  religious 
trend,  or  drift  of  thought,  or  peculiarity  of  ed 
ucation,  or  code  of  principles,  or  breed  of  folly, 
or  style  of  conversation,  or  preference  for  a 
particular  subject  for  discussion,  or  form  of 
legs  or  trunk  or  head  or  face  or  expression  or 
complexion,  or  gait,  or  dress,  or  manners,  or 
disposition,  or  any  other  human  detail,  inside 
or  outside,  that  can  rationally  be  generalized 
as  "  American." 

Whenever  you  have  found  what  seems  to  be 
an  "  American"  peculiarity,  you  have  only  to 
cross  a  frontier  or  two,  or  go  down  or  up  in 
the  social  scale,  and  you  perceive  that  it  has 
disappeared.  And  you  can  cross  the  Atlantic 
and  find  it  again.  There  may  be  a  Newport 
religious  drift  or  sporting  drift,  or  conversa 
tional  style  or  complexion,  or  cut  of  face,  but 
there  are  entire  empires  in  America,  north, 
south,  east,  and  west,  where  you  could  not 
find  your  duplicates.  It  is  the  same  with 
everything  else  which  one  might  propose  to 
call  "American."  M.  Bourget  thinks  he  has 


WHAT   PAUL    DOURGET   THINKS    OF    US         19 1 

found  the  American  Coquette.  If  he  had 
really  found  her  he  would  also  have  found,  I 
am  sure,  that  she  was  not  new,  that  she  exists 
in  other  lands  in  the  same  forms,  and  with  the 
same  frivolous  heart  and  the  same  ways  and 
impulses.  I  think  this  because  I  have  seen 
our  coquette;  I  have  seen  her  in  life;  better 
still,  I  have  seen  her  in  our  novels,  and  seen 
her  twin  in  foreign  novels.  I  wish  M.  Bourget 
had  seen  ours.  He  thought  he  saw  her.  And 
so  he  applied  his  System  to  her.  She  was  a 
Species.  So  he  gathered  a  number  of  samples 
of  what  seemed  to  be  her,  and  put  them  under 
his  glass,  and  divided  them  into  groups  which 
he  calls  "  types,"  and  labelled  them  in  his  usual 
scientific  way  with  "  formulas "  —brief  sharp 
descriptive  flashes  that  make  a  person  blink, 
sometimes,  they  are  so  sudden  and  vivid.  As 
a  rule  they  are  pretty  far-fetched,  but  that  is 
not  an  important  matter;  they  surprise,  they 
compel  admiration,  and  I  notice  by  some  of 
the  comments  which  his  efforts  have  called 
forth  that  they  deceive  the  unwary.  Here  are 
a  few  of  the  coquette  variants  which  he  has 
grouped  and  labelled : 

THE  COLLECTOR. 

THE  EQUILIBREE. 

THE  PROFESSIONAL  BEAUTY. 


IQ2  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

THE  BLUFFER. 

THE  GIRL-BOY. 

If  he  had  stopped  with  describing  these 
characters  we  should  have  been  obliged  to  be 
lieve  that  they  exist ;  that  they  exist,  and  that 
he  has  seen  them  and  spoken  with  them.  But 
he  did  not  stop  there;  he  went  further  and 
furnished  to  us  light-throwing  samples  of  their 
behavior,  and  also  light- throwing  samples  of 
their  speeches.  He  entered  those  things  in 
his  note-book  without  suspicion,  he  takes  them 
out  and  delivers  them  to  the  world  with  a 
candor  and  simplicity  which  show  that  he  be 
lieved  them  genuine.  They  throw  altogether 
too  much  light.  They  reveal  to  the  native 
the  origin  of  his  find.  I  suppose  he  knows 
how  he  came  to  make  that  novel  and  capti 
vating  discovery,  by  this  time.  If  he  does 
not,  any  American  can  tell  him — any  Ameri 
can  to  whom  he  will  show  his  anecdotes.  It 
was  "  put  up  "  on  him,  as  we  say.  It  was  a 
jest — to  be  plain,  it  was  a  series  of  frauds.  To 
my  mind  it  was  a  poor  sort  of  jest,  witless  and 
contemptible.  The  players  of  it  have  their 
reward,  such  as  it  is ;  they  have  exhibited  the 
fact  that  whatever  they  may  be  they  are  not 
ladies.  M.  Bourget  did  not  discover  a  type  of 
coquette  ;  he  merely  discovered  a  type  of  prac- 


WHAT   PAUL    BOURGET   THINKS    OF    US         193 

tical  joker.  One  may  say  the  type  of  practical 
joker,  for  these  people  are  exactly  alike  all 
over  the  world.  Their  equipment  is  always 
the  same :  a  vulgar  mind,  a  puerile  wit,  a  cruel 
disposition  as  a  rule,  and  always  the  spirit  of 
treachery. 

In  his  Chapter  IV.  M.  Bourget  has  two  or 
three  columns  gravely  devoted  to  the  collating 
and  examining  and  psychologizing  of  these 
sorry  little  frauds.  One  is  not  moved  to  laugh. 
There  is  nothing  funny  in  the  situation ;  it  is 
only  pathetic.  The  stranger  gave  those  people 
his  confidence,  and  they  dishonorably  treated 
him  in  return. 

But  one  must  be  allowed  to  suspect  that  M. 
Bourget  was  a  little  to  blame  himself.  Even 
a  practical  joker  has  some  little  judgment. 
He  has  to  exercise  some  degree  of  sagacity 
in  selecting  his  prey  if  he  would  save  himself 
from  getting  into  trouble.  In  my  time  I  have 
seldom  seen  such  daring  things  marketed  at 
any  price  as  these  conscienceless  folk  have 
worked  off  at  par  on  this  confiding  observer. 
It  compels  the  conviction  that  there  was  some 
thing  about  him  that  bred  in  those  speculators 
a  quite  unusual  sense  of  safety,  and  encouraged 
them  to  strain  their  powers  in  his  behalf.  They 
seem  to  have  satisfied  themselves  that  all  he 
is 


UNIVEI 


194  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

wanted  was  "  significant "  facts,  and  that  he 
was  not  accustomed  to  examine  the  source 
whence  they  proceeded.  It  is  plain  that  there 
was  a  sort  of  conspiracy  against  him  almost 
from  the  start — a  conspiracy  to  freight  him  up 
with  all  the  strange  extravagances  those  peo 
ple's  decayed  brains  could  invent. 

The  lengths  to  which  they  went  are  next  to 
incredible.  They  told  him  things  which  surely 
would  have  excited  any  one  else's  suspicion, 
but  they  did  not  excite  his.  Consider  this : 

"  There  is  not  in  all  the  United  States  an  entirely 
nude  statue" 

If  an  angel  should  come  down  and  say  such 
a  thing  about  heaven,  a  reasonably  cautious 
observer  would  take  that  angel's  number  and 
inquire  a  little  further  before  he  added  it  to 
his  catch.  What  does  the  present  observer  do  ? 
Adds  it.  Adds  it  at  once.  Adds  it,  and  labels 
it  with  this  innocent  comment: 

"  This  small  fact  is  strangely  significant" 

It  does  seem  to  me  that  this  kind  of  observ 
ing  is  defective. 

Here  is  another  curiosity  which  some  liberal 
person  made  him  a  present  of.  I  should  think 
it  ought  to  have  disturbed  the  deep  slumber 


WHAT   PAUL   BOURGET   THINKS   OF    US         195 

of  his  suspicion  a  little,  but  it  didn't.  It  was 
a  note  from  a  fog-horn  for  strenuousness,  it 
seems  to  me,  but  the  doomed  voyager  did  not 
catch  it.  If  he  had  but  caught  it,  it  would 
have  saved  him  from  several  disasters : 

"  If  the  American  knows  that  you  are  travelling  to 
take  notes,  he  is  interested  in  it,  and  at  the  same  time 
rejoices  in  it,  as  in  a  tribute." 

Again,  this  is  defective  observation.  It  is 
human  to  like  to  be  praised ;  one  can  even 
notice  it  in  the  French.  But  it  is  not  human 
to  like  to  be  ridiculed,  even  when  it  comes  in 
the  form  of  a  "tribute."  I  think  a  little  psy 
chologizing  ought  to  have  come  in  there. 
Something  like  this:  A  dog  does  not  like  to 
be  ridiculed,  a  redskin  does  not  like  to  be  ridi 
culed,  a  negro  does  not  like  to  be  ridiculed,  a 
Chinaman  does  not  like  to  be  ridiculed;  let 
us  deduce  from  these  significant  facts  this  for 
mula  :  the  American's  grade  being  higher  than 
these,  and  the  chain  of  argument  stretching 
unbroken  all  the  way  up  to  him,  there  is  room 
for  suspicion  that  the  person  who  said  the 
American  likes  to  be  ridiculed,  and  regards  it 
as  a  tribute,  is  not  a  capable  observer. 

I  feel  persuaded  that  in  the  matter  of  psy 
chologizing,  a  professional  is  too  apt  to  yield 


196  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

to  the  fascinations  of  the  loftier  regions  of  that 
great  art,  to  the  neglect  of  its  lowlier  walks. 
Every  now  and  then,  at  half-hour  intervals,  M. 
Bourget  collects  a  hatful  of  airy  inaccuracies 
and  dissolves  them  in  a  panful  of  assorted  ab 
stractions,  and  runs  the  charge  into  a  mould 
and  turns  you  out  a  compact  principle  which 
will  explain  an  American  girl,  or  an  Ameri 
can  woman,  or  why  new  people  yearn  for  old 
things,  or  any  other  impossible  riddle  which  a 
person  wants  answered. 

It  seems  to  be  conceded  that  there  are  a 
few  human  peculiarities  that  can  be  generalized 
and  located  here  and  there  in  the  world  and 
named  by  the  name  of  the  nation  where  they 
are  found.  I  wonder  what  they  are.  Per 
haps  one  of  them  is  temperament.  One  speaks 
of  French  vivacity  and  German  gravity  and 
English  stubbornness.  There  is  no  American 
temperament.  The  nearest  that  one  can  come 
at  it  is  to  say  there  are  two — the  composed 
Northern  and  the  impetuous  Southern ;  and 
both  are  found  in  other  countries.  Morals? 
Purity  of  women  may  fairly  be  called  universal 
with  us,  but  that  is  the  case  in  some  other 
countries.  We  have  no  monopoly  of  it ;  it 
cannot  be  named  American.  I  think  that 
there  is  but  a  single  specialty  with  us,  only 


WHAT   PAUL    BOURGET   THINKS    OF   US          197 

one  thing  that  can  be  called  by  the  wide  name 
"  American."  That  is  the  national  devotion 
to  ice-water.  All  Germans  drink  beer,  but  the 
British  nation  drinks  beer,  too ;  so  neither  of 
those  peoples  is  the  beer-drinking  nation.  I 
suppose  we  do  stand  alone  in  having  a  drink 
that  nobody  likes  but  ourselves.  When  we 
have  been  a  month  in  Europe  we  lose  our 
craving  for  it,  and  we  finally  tell  the  hotel 
folk  that  they  needn't  provide  it  any  more. 
Yet  we  hardly  touch  our  native  shore  again, 
winter  or  summer,  before  we  are  eager  for  it. 
The  reasons  for  this  state  of  things  have  not 
been  psychologized  yet.  I  drop  the  hint  and 
say  no  more. 

It  is  my  belief  that  there  are  some  "  nation 
al  "  traits  and  things  scattered  about  the  world 
that  are  mere  superstitions,  frauds  that  have 
lived  so  long  that  they  have  the  solid  look  of 
facts.  One  of  them  is  the  dogma  that  the 
French  are  the  only  chaste  people  in  the  world. 
Ever  since  I  arrived  in  France  this  last  time  I 
have  been  accumulating  doubts  about  that ; 
and  before  I  leave  this  sunny  land  again  I  will 
gather  in  a  few  random  statistics  and  psychol 
ogize  the  plausibilities  out  of  it.  If  people 
are  to  come  over  to  America  and  find  fault 
with  our  girls  and  our  women,  and  psycholo- 


198  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

gize  every  little  thing  they  do,  and  try  to 
teach  them  how  to  behave,  and  how  to  culti 
vate  themselves  up  to  where  one  cannot  tell 
them  from  the  French  model,  I  intend  to  find 
out  whether  those  missionaries  are  qualified 
or  not.  A  nation  ought  always  to  examine 
into  this  detail  before  engaging  the  teacher 
for  good.  This  last  one  has  let  fall  a  remark 
which  renewed  those  doubts  of  mine  when  I 
read  it : 

"  In  our  high  Parisian  existence,  for  instance,  we 
find  applied  to  arts  and  luxury,  and  to  debauchery,  all 
the  powers  and  all  the  weaknesses  of  the  French  soul." 

You  see,  it  amounts  to  a  trade  with  the 
French  soul ;  a  profession ;  a  science ;  the  se 
rious  business  of  life,  so  to  speak,  in  our  high 
Parisian  existence.  I  do  not  quite  like  the 
look  of  it.  I  question  if  it  can  be  taught  with 
profit  in  our  country,  except  of  course  to  those 
pathetic,  neglected  minds  that  are  waiting 
there  so  yearningly  for  the  education  which 
M.  Bourget  is  going  to  furnish  them  from  the 
serene  summits  of  our  high  Parisian  life. 

I  spoke  a  moment  ago  of  the  existence  of 
some  superstitions  that  have  been  parading 
the  world  as  facts  this  long  time.  For  in 
stance,  consider  the  Dollar.  The  world  seems 


WHAT   PAUL    BOURGET   THINKS   OF   US         199 

to  think  that  the  love  of  money  is  "  Ameri 
can  ";  and  that  the  mad  desire  to  get  sudden 
ly  rich  is  "  American."  I  believe  that  both  of 
these  things  are  merely  and  broadly  human, 
not  American  monopolies  at  all.  The  love  of 
money  is  natural  to  all  nations,  for  money  is  a 
good  and  strong  friend.  I  think  that  this  love 
has  existed  everywhere,  ever  since  the  Bible 
called  it  the  root  of  all  evil. 

I  think  that  the  reason  why  we  Americans 
seem  to  be  so  addicted  to  trying  to  get  rich 
suddenly  is  merely  because  the  opportunity  to 
make  promising  efforts  in  that  direction  has 
offered  itself  to  us  with  a  frequency  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  European  experience.  For 
eighty  years  this  opportunity  has  been  offering 
itself  in  one  new  town  or  region  after  another 
straight  westward,  step  by  step,  all  the  way 
from  the  Atlantic  coast  to  the  Pacific.  When 
a  mechanic  could  buy  ten  town  lots  on  tolera 
bly  long  credit  for  ten  months'  savings  out  of 
his  wages,  and  reasonably  expect  to  sell  them 
in  a  couple  of  years  for  ten  times  what  he 
gave  for  them,  it  was  human  for  him  to  try 
the  venture,  and  he  did  it  no  matter  what  his 
nationality  was.  He  would  have  done  it  in 
Europe  or  China  if  he  had  had  the  same 
chance. 


200  HOW    TO    TELL   A    STORY 

In  the  flush  times  in  the  silver  regions  a 
cook  or  any  other  humble  worker  stood  a 
very  good  chance  to  get  rich  out  of  a  trifle  of 
money  risked  in  a  stock  deal ;  and  that  person 
promptly  took  that  risk,  no  matter  what  his 
or  her  nationality  might  be.  I  was  there,  and 
saw  it. 

But  these  opportunities  have  not  been  plen 
ty  in  our  Southern  States ;  so  there  you  have 
a  prodigious  region  where  the  rush  for  sudden 
wealth  is  almost  an  unknown  thing — and  has 
been,  from  the  beginning. 

Europe  has  offered  few  opportunities  for 
poor  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry  ;  but  when  she 
has  offered  one,  there  has  been  no  noticeable 
difference  between  European  eagerness  and 
American.  England  saw  this  in  the  wild  days 
of  the  Railroad  King;  France  saw  it  in  1720 
— time  of  Law  and  the  Mississippi  Bubble. 
I  am  sure  I  have  never  seen  in  the  gold  and 
silver  mines  any  madness,  fury,  frenzy  to  get 
suddenly  rich  which  was  even  remotely  com 
parable  to  that  which  raged  in  France  in  the 
Bubble  day.  If  I  had  a  cyclopaedia  here  I 
could  turn  to  that  memorable  case,  and  sat 
isfy  nearly  anybody  that  the  hunger  for  the 
sudden  dollar  is  no  more  "  American  "  than  it 
is  French.  And  if  I  could  furnish  an  Ameri- 


WHAT   PAUL    BOURGET   THINKS    OF   US         2OI 

can  opportunity  to  staid  Germany,  I  think  I 
could  wake  her  up  like  a  house  afire. 

But  I  must  return  to  the  Generalizations, 
Psychologizings,  Deductions.  When  M.  Bour- 
get  is  exploiting  these  arts,  it  is  then  that 
he  is  peculiarly  and  particularly  himself.  His 
ways  are  wholly  original  when  he  encounters  a 
trait  or  a  custom  which  is  new  to  him.  Another 
person  would  merely  examine  the  find,  verify 
it,  estimate  its  value,  and  let  it  go  ;  but  that  is 
not  sufficient  for  M.  Bourget :  he  always  wants 
to  know  why  that  thing  exists,  he  wants  to 
know  how  it  came  to  happen  ;  and  he  will  not 
let  go  of  it  until  he  has  found  out.  And  in 
every  instance  he  will  find  that  reason  where 
no  one  but  himself  would  have  thought  of 
looking  for  it.  He  does  not  seem  to  care  for 
a  reason  that  is  not  picturesquely  located;  one 
might  almost  say  picturesquely  and  impossibly 
located. 

He  found  out  that  in  America  men  do  not 
try  to  hunt  down  young  married  women.  At 
once,  as  usual,  he  wanted  to  know  why.  Any 
one  could  have  told  him.  He  could  have 
divined  it  by  the  lights  thrown  by  the  novels 
of  the  country.  But  no,  he  preferred  to  find 
out  for  himself.  He  has  a  trustfulness  as  re 
gards  men  and  facts  which  is  fine  and  unusual ; 


202  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

he  is  not  particular  about  the  source  of  a  fact, 
he  is  not  particular  about  the  character  and 
standing  of  the  fact  itself ;  but  when  it  comes 
to  pounding  out  the  reason  for  the  existence 
of  the  fact,  he  will  trust  no  one  but  himself. 

In  the  present  instance  here  was  his  fact: 
American  young  married  women  are  not  pur 
sued  by  the  corruptor ;  and  here  was  the  ques 
tion  :  What  is  it  that  protects  her  ? 

It  seems  quite  unlikely  that  that  problem 
could  have  offered  difficulties  to  any  but  a 
trained  philosopher.  Nearly  any  person  would 
have  said  to  M.  Bourget :  "  Oh,  that  is  very 
simple.  It  is  very  seldom  in  America  that  a 
marriage  is  made  on  a  commercial  basis;  our 
marriages,  from  the  beginning, have  been  made 
for  love ;  and  where  love  is  there  is  no  room 
for  the  corruptor." 

Now,  it  is  interesting  to  see  the  formidable 
way  in  which  M.  Bourget  went  at  that  poor, 
humble  little  thing.  He  moved  upon  it  in 
column — three  columns — and  with  artillery. 

"  Two  reasons  of  a  very  different  kind  ex 
plain  " — that  fact. 

And  now  that  I  have  got  so  far,  I  am  al 
most  afraid  to  say  what  his  two  reasons  are, 
lest  I  be  charged  with  inventing  them.  But 
I  will  not  retreat  now;  I  will  condense  them 


WHAT    PAUL    BOURGET   THINKS    OF    US          203 

and  print  them,  giving   my  word  that  I  am 
honest,  and  not  trying  to  deceive  any  one. 

1.  Young  married  women  are  protected  from 
the  approaches  of  the  seducer  in  New  Eng 
land  and  vicinity  by  the  diluted  remains  of  a 
prudence  created  by  a  Puritan  law  of  two  hun 
dred  years  ago,  which  for  a  while  punished 
adultery  with  death. 

2.  And  young  married  women  of  the  other 
forty  or   fifty  States   are   protected  by  laws 
which    afford    extraordinary   facilities    for   di 
vorce. 

If  I  have  not  lost  my  mind  I  have  accurate 
ly  conveyed  those  two  Vesuvian  irruptions  of 
philosophy.  But  the  reader  can  consult  Chap 
ter  IV.  of  Outre-Mer  and  decide  for  himself. 
Let  us  examine  this  paralyzing  Deduction  or 
Explanation  by  the  light  of  a  few  sane  facts. 

1.  This  universality  of  "  protection  "  has  ex 
isted  in  our  country  from  the  beginning;   be 
fore  the  death  penalty  existed  in  New  Eng 
land,  and  during  all  the  generations  that  have 
dragged  by  since  it  was  annulled. 

2.  Extraordinary  facilities  for   divorce   are 
of  such  recent  creation  that  any  middle-aged 
American  can   remember  a  time  when  such 
things  had  not  yet  been  thought  of. 

Let  us  suppose  that  the  first  easy  divorce 


204  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

law  went  into  effect  forty  years  ago,  and  got 
noised  around  and  fairly  started  in  business 
thirty -five  years  ago,  when  we  had,  say,  25,- 
000,000  of  white  population.  Let  us  suppose 
that  among  5,000,000  of  them  the  young  mar 
ried  women  were  "  protected  "  by  the  surviv 
ing  shudder  of  that  ancient  Puritan  scare — 
what  is  M.  Bourget  going  to  do  about  those 
who  lived  among  the  20,000,000  ?  They  were 
clean  in  their  morals,  they  were  pure,  yet  there 
was  no  easy  divorce  law  to  protect  them. 

Awhile  ago  I  said  that  M.  Bourget's  method 
of  truth-seeking — hunting  for  it  in  out-of-the- 
way  places — was  new ;  but  that  was  an  error. 
I  remember  that  when  Leverrier  discovered 
the  Milky  Way,  he  and  the  other  astronomers 
began  to  theorize  about  it  in  substantially  the 
same  fashion  which  M.  Bourget  employs  in 
his  reasonings  about  American  social  facts  and 
their  origin.  Leverrier  advanced  the  hypoth 
esis  that  the  Milky  Way  was  caused  by  gase 
ous  protoplasmic  emanations  from  the  field  of 
Waterloo,  which,  ascending  to  an  altitude  de- 
terminable  by  their  own  specific  gravity,  be 
came  luminous  through  the  development  and 
exposure — by  the  natural  processes  of  animal 
decay — of  the  phosphorus  contained  in  them. 

This  theory  was  warmly  complimented  by 


WHAT   PAUL    BOURGET   THIN 


Ptolemy,  who,  however,  after  much  thought 
and  research,  decided  that  he  could  not  accept 
it  as  final.  His  own  theory  was  that  the  Milky 
Way  was  an  emigration  of  lightning-bugs; 
and  he  supported  and  reinforced  this  theorem 
by  the  well-known  fact  that  the  locusts  do  like 
that  in  Egypt. 

Giordano  Bruno  also  was  outspoken  in  his 
praises  of  Leverrier's  important  contribution 
to  astronomical  science,  and  was  at  first  in 
clined  to  regard  it  as  conclusive ;  but  later, 
conceiving  it  to  be  erroneous,  he  pronounced 
against  it,  and  advanced  the  hypothesis  that 
the  Milky  Way  was  a  detachment  or  corps  of 
stars  which  became  arrested  and  held  in  sus 
pense  suspcnsorum  by  refraction  of  gravitation 
while  on  the  march  to  join  their  several  con 
stellations  ;  a  proposition  for  which  he  was 
afterwards  burned  at  the  stake  in  Jacksonville, 
Illinois. 

These  were  all  brilliant  and  picturesque 
theories,  and  each  was  received  with  enthusi 
asm  by  the  scientific  world  ;  but  when  a  New 
England  farmer,  who  was  not  a  thinker,  but 
only  a  plain  sort  of  person  who  tried  to  ac 
count  for  large  facts  in  simple  ways,  came  out 
with  the  opinion  that  the  Milky  Way  was  just 
common,  ordinary  stars,  and  was  put  where  it 


206  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

was  because  God  "wanted  to  hev  it  so,"  the 
admirable  idea  fell  perfectly  flat. 

As  a  literary  artist,  M.  Bourget  is  as  fresh 
and  striking  as  he  is  as  a  scientific  one.  He 
says,  "  Above  all,  I  do  not  believe  much  in  an 
ecdotes."  Why?  "In  history  they  are  all 
false"  —  a  sufficiently  broad  statement — "in 
literature  all  libellous"  —  also  a  sufficiently 
sweeping  statement,  coming  from  a  critic  who 
notes  that  we  are  a  people  who  are  peculiarly 
extravagant  in  our  language — "  and  when  it 
is  a  matter  of  social  life,  almost  all  biassed." 
It  seems  to  amount  to  stultification,  almost. 
He  has  built  two  or  three  breeds  of  American 
coquettes  out  of  anecdotes — mainly  "  biassed  " 
ones,  I  suppose ;  and,  as  they  occur  "  in  liter 
ature,"  furnished  by  his  pen,  they  must  be 
"  all  libellous."  Or  did  he  mean  not  in  liter 
ature  or  anecdotes  about  literature  or  literary 
people  ?  I  am  not  able  to  answer  that.  Per 
haps  the  original  would  be  clearer,  but  I  have 
only  the  translation  of  this  instalment  by  me. 
I  think  the  remark  had  an  intention  ;  also  that 
this  intention  was  booked  for  the  trip;  but 
that  either  in  the  hurry  of  the  remark's  de 
parture  it  got  left,  or  in  the  confusion  of  chang 
ing  cars  at  the  translator's  frontier  it  got  side 
tracked. 


WHAT   PAUL    BOURGET    THINKS    OF    US          207 

"  But  on  the  other  hand  I  believe  in  statis 
tics;  and  those  on  divorces  appear  to  me  to 
be  most  conclusive."  And  he  sets  himself  the 
task  of  explaining — in  a  couple  of  columns — 
the  process  by  which  Easy-Divorce  conceived, 
invented,  originated,  developed,  and  perfected 
an  empire-embracing  condition  of  sexual  purity 
in  the  States.  In  40  years.  No,  he  doesn't 
state  the  interval.  With  all  his  passion  for 
statistics  he  forgot  to  ask  how  long  it  took  to 
produce  this  gigantic  miracle. 

I  have  followed  his  pleasant  but  devious 
trail  through  those  columns,  but  I  was  not 
able  to  get  hold  of  his  argument  and  find  out 
what  it  was.  I  was  not  even  able  to  find  out 
where  it  left  off.  It  seemed  to  gradually  dis 
solve  and  flow  off  into  other  matters.  I  fol 
lowed  it  with  interest,  for  I  was  anxious  to 
learn  how  easy-divorce  eradicated  adultery  in 
America,  but  I  was  disappointed ;  I  have  no 
idea  yet  how  it  did  it.  I  only  know  it  didn't. 
But  that  is  not  valuable ;  I  knew  it  before. 

Well,  humor  is  the  great  thing,  the  saving 
thing,  after  all.  The  minute  it  crops  up,  all 
our  hardnesses  yield,  all  our  irritations  and  re 
sentments  flit  away,  and  a  sunny  spirit  takes 
their  place.  And  so,  when  M.  Bourget  said 
that  bright  thing  about  our  grandfathers,  I 


208  HOW   TO    TELL   A   STORY 

broke  all  up.  I  remember  exploding  its  Amer 
ican  countermine  once,  under  that  grand  hero, 
Napoleon.  He  was  only  First  Consul  then, 
and  I  was  Consul -General  —  for  the  United 
States,  of  course ;  but  we  were  very  intimate, 
notwithstanding  the  difference  in  rank,  for  I 
waived  that.  One  day  something  offered  the 
opening,  and  he  said  : 

"  Well,  General,  I  suppose  life  can  never  get 
entirely  dull  to  an  American,  because  when 
ever  he  can't  strike  up  any  other  way  to  put 
in  his  time  he  can  always  get  away  with  a  few 
years  trying  to  find  out  who  his  grandfather 
was !" 

I  fairly  shouted,  for  I  had  never  heard  it 
sound  better;  and  then  I  was  back  at  him  as 
quick  as  a  flash  : 

"  Right,  your  Excellency !  But  I  reckon  a 
Frenchman's  got  his  little  stand-by  for  a  dull 
time,  too ;  because  when  all  other  interests  fail 
he  can  turn  in  and  see  if  he  can't  find  out  who 
his  father  was !" 

Well,  you  should  have  heard  him  just  whoop, 
and  cackle,  and  carry  on  !  He  reached  up  and 
hit  me  one  on  the  shoulder,  and  says : 

"Land,  but  it's  good!  It's  im-mensely 
good  !  I'George,  I  never  heard  it  said  so  good 
in  my  life  before !  Say  it  again." 


WHAT    PAUL    BOURGET   THINKS    OF    US         2OQ 

So  I  said  it  again,  and  he  said  his  again,  and 
I  said  mine  again,  and  then  he  did,  and  then  I 
did,  and  then  he  did,  and  we  kept  on  doing  it, 
and  doing  it,  and  I  never  had  such  a  good 
time,  and  he  said  the  same.  In  my  opinion 
there  isn't  anything  that  is  as  killing  as  one  of 
those  dear  old  ripe  pensioners  if  you  know  how 
to  snatch  it  out  in  a  kind  of  a  fresh  sort  of 
original  way. 

But  I  wish  M.  Bourget  had  read  more  of  our 
novels  before  he  came.  It  is  the  only  way  to 
thoroughly  understand  a  people.  When  I 
found  I  was  coming  to  Paris,  I  read  La  Terre. 


A  LITTLE  NOTE  TO  M.  PAUL  BOURGET 


A  LITTLE  NOTE  TO  M.  PAUL  BOURGET 

[The  preceding  squib  was  assailed  in  the  North 
American  Review  in  an  article  entitled  "  Mark  Twain 
and  Paul  Bourget,"  by  Max  O'Rell.  The  following 
little  note  is  a  Rejoinder  to  that  article.  It  is  possi 
ble  that  the  position  assumed  here— that  M.  Bourget 
dictated  the  O'Rell  article  himself— is  untenable.] 

You  have  every  right,  my  dear  M.  Bourget, 
to  retort  upon  me  by  dictation,  if  you  prefer 
that  method  to  writing  at  me  with  your  pen ; 
but  if  I  may  say  it  without  hurt — and  certain 
ly  I  mean  no  offence  —  I  believe  you  would 
have  acquitted  yourself  better  with  the  pen. 
With  the  pen  you  are  at  home ;  it  is  your  nat 
ural  weapon  ;  you  use  it  with  grace,  eloquence, 
charm,  persuasiveness,  when  men  are  to  be 
convinced,  and  with  formidable  effect  when 
they  have  earned  a  castigation.  But  I  am 
sure  I  see  signs  in  the  above  article  that  you 
are  either  unaccustomed  to  dictating  or  are 
out  of  practice.  If  you  will  re-read  it  you  will 
notice,  yourself,  that  it  lacks  definiteness ;  that 


214  HOW  TO   TELL   A   STORY 

it  lacks  purpose  ;  that  it  lacks  coherence;  that 
it  lacks  a  subject  to  talk  about ;  that  it  is  loose 
and  wabbly ;  that  it  wanders  around ;  that  it 
loses  itself  early  and  does  not  find  itself  any 
more.  There  are  some  other  defects,  as  you 
will  notice,  but  I  think  I  have  named  the  main 
ones.  I  feel  sure  that  they  are  all  due  to  your 
lack  of  practice  in  dictating. 

Inasmuch  as  you  had  not  signed  it  I  had 
the  impression  at  first  that  you  had  not  dic 
tated  it.  But  only  for  a  moment.  Certain 
quite  simple  and  definite  facts  reminded  me 
that  the  article  had  to  come  from  you,  for  the 
reason  that  it  could  not  come  from  any  one  else 
without  a  specific  invitation  from  you  or  from 
me.  I  mean,  it  could  not  except  as  an  intru 
sion,  a  transgression  of  the  law  which  forbids 
strangers  to  mix  into  a  private  dispute  be 
tween  friends,  unasked. 

Those  simple  and  definite  facts  were  these : 
I  had  published  an  article  in  this  magazine, 
with  you  for  my  subject ;  just  you  yourself;  I 
stuck  strictly  to  that  one  subject,  and  did  not 
interlard  any  other.  No  one,  of  course,  could 
call  me  to  account  but  you  alone,  or  your  au 
thorized  representative.  I  asked  some  ques 
tions —  asked  them  of  myself.  I  answered 
them  myself.  My  article  was  thirteen  pages 


A   LITTLE   NOTE   TO    M.  PAUL    BOURGET        215 

long,  and  all  devoted  to  you ;  devoted  to  you, 
and  divided  up  in  this  way:  one  page  of 
guesses  as  to  what  subjects  you  would  instruct 
us  in,  as  teacher;  one  page  of  doubts  as  to 
the  effectiveness  of  your  method  of  examining 
us  and  our  ways ;  two  or  three  pages  of  criti 
cism  of  your  method,  and  of  certain  results 
which  it  furnished  you  ;  two  or  three  pages  of 
attempts  to  show  the  justness  of  these  same 
criticisms;  half  a  dozen  pages  made  up  of 
slight  fault-findings  with  certain  minor  details 
of  your  literary  workmanship,  of  extracts  from 
your  Outre-Mcr  and  comments  upon  them  ; 
then  I  closed  with  an  anecdote.  I  repeat— 
for  certain  reasons — that  /  closed  with  an  anec 
dote. 

When  I  was  asked  by  this  magazine  if  I 
wished  to  "answer"  a  "  reply  "  to  that  article 
of  mine,  I  said  "  yes,"  and  waited  in  Paris  for 
the  proof-sheets  of  the  "  reply  "  to  come.  I 
already  knew,  by  the  cablegram,  that  the  "  re 
ply  "  would  not  be  signed  by  you,  but  upon 
reflection  I  knew  it  would  be  dictated  by  you, 
because  no  volunteer  would  feel  himself  at 
liberty  to  assume  your  championship  in  a  pri 
vate  dispute,  unasked,  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
you  are  quite  well  able  to  take  care  of  your 
matters  of  that  sort  yourself  and  are  not  in 


2l6  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

need  of  any  one's  help.  No,  a  volunteer  could 
not  make  such  a  venture.  It  would  be  too 
immodest.  Also  too  gratuitously  generous. 
And  a  shade  too  self-sufficient.  No,  he  could 
not  venture  it.  It  would  look  like  too  much 
anxiety  to  get  in  at  a  feast  where  no  plate 
had  been  provided  for  him.  In  fact  he  could 
not  get  in  at  all,  except  by  the  back  way  and 
with  a  false  key ;  that  is  to  say,  a  pretext — a 
pretext  invented  for  the  occasion  by  putting 
into  my  mouth  words  which  I  did  not  use, 
and  by  wresting  sayings  of  mine  from  their 
plain  and  true  meaning.  Would  he  resort  to 
methods  like  those  to  get  in  ?  No  ;  there  are 
no  people  of  that  kind.  So  then  I  knew  for 
a  certainty  that  you  dictated  the  Reply  your 
self.  I  knew  you  did  it  to  save  yourself  man 
ual  labor. 

And  you  had  the  right,  as  I  have  already 
said;  and  I  am  content  —  perfectly  content. 
Yet  it  would  have  been  little  trouble  to  you, 
and  a  great  kindness  to  me,  if  you  had  written 
your  Reply  all  out  with  your  own  capable  hand. 

Because  then  it  would  have  replied  —  and 
that  is  really  what  a  Reply  is  for.  Broadly 
speaking,  its  function  is  to  refute — as  you  will 
easily  concede.  That  leaves  something  for 
the  other  person  to  take  hold  of:  he  has  a 


A   LITTLE   NOTE   TO   M.  PAUL    BOURGET        2 17 

chance  to  reply  to  the  Reply,  he  has  a  chance 
to  refute  the  refutation.  This  would  have  hap 
pened  if  you  had  written  it  out  instead  of  dic 
tating.  Dictating  is  nearly  sure  to  unconcen- 
trate  the  dictator's  mind,  when  he  is  out  of 
practice,  confuse  him,  and  betray  him  into  us 
ing  one  set  of  literary  rules  when  he  ought  to 
use  a  quite  different  set.  Often  it  betrays  him 
into  employing  the  RULES  FOR  CONVERSA 
TION  BETWEEN  A  SHOUTER  AND  A  DEAF  PER 
SON — as  in  the  present  case — when  he  ought 
to  employ  the  RULES  FOR  CONDUCTING  DIS 
CUSSION  WITH  A  FAULT-FINDER.  The  great 
foundation-rule  and  basic  principle  of  discus 
sion  with  a  fault-finder  is  relevancy  and  con 
centration  upon  the  subject ;  whereas  the  great 
foundation-rule  and  basic  principle  governing 
conversation  between  a  shouter  and  a  deaf 
person  is  irrelevancy  and  persistent  desertion 
of  the  topic  in  hand.  If  I  may  be  allowed  to 
illustrate  by  quoting  example  IV.,  section  7, 
from  chapter  ix.  of  "  Revised  Rules  for  Con 
ducting  Conversation  between  a  Shouter  and 
a  Deaf  Person,"  it  will  assist  us  in  getting  a 
clear  idea  of  the  difference  between  the  two 
sets  of  rules : 

Shouter.  Did  you  say  his  name  is  WETH- 
ERBY? 


2l8  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

Deaf  Person.  Change  ?  Yes,  I  think  it  will. 
Though  if  it  should  clear  off  I — 

Shouter.  It's  his  NAME  I  want— his  NAME. 

Deaf  Person.  Maybe  so,  maybe  so ;  but  it 
will  only  be  a  shower,  I  think. 

Shouter.  No,  no,  no  ! — you  have  quite  mis- 
underSTOOD  me.  If— 

Deaf  Person.  Ah  !  GOOD  morning ;  I  am 
sorry  you  must  go.  But  call  again,  and  let 
me  continue  to  be  of  assistance  to  you  in 
every  way  I  can. 

You  see,  it  is  a  perfect  kodak  of  the  article 
you  have  dictated.  It  is  really  curious  and 
interesting  when  you  come  to  compare  it  with 
yours ;  in  detail,  with  my  former  article  to 
which  it  is  a  Reply  in  your  hand.  I  talk 
twelve  pages  about  your  American  instruction 
projects,  and  your  doubtful  scientific  system, 
and  your  painstaking  classification  of  non-ex 
istent  things,  and  your  diligence  and  zeal  and 
sincerity,  and  your  disloyal  attitude  towards 
anecdotes,  and  your  undue  reverence  for  un 
safe  statistics  and  for  facts  that  lack  a  pedi 
gree  ;  and  you  turn  around  and  come  back  at 
me  with  eight  pages  of  weather. 

I  do  not  see  how  a  person  can  act  so.  It  is 
good  of  you  to  repeat,  with  change  of  lan 
guage,  in  the  bulk  of  your  rejoinder,  so  much 


A   LITTLE   NOTE   TO   M.  PAUL    BOURGET        219 

of  my  own  article,  and  adopt  my  sentiments, 
and  make  them  over,  and  put  new  buttons  on  ; 
and  I  like  the  compliment,  and  am  frank  to 
say  so ;  but  agreeing  with  a  person  cripples 
controversy  and  ought  not  to  be  allowed.  It 
is  weather ;  and  of  almost  the  worst  sort.  It 
pleases  me  greatly  to  hear  you  discourse  with 
such  approval  and  expansiveness  upon  my 
text: 

"A  foreigner  can  photograph  the  exteriors 
of  a  nation,  but  I  think  that  is  as  far  as  he 
can  get.  I  think  that  no  foreigner  can  report 
its  interior  ;"*  which  is  a  quite  clear  way  of 
saying  that  a  foreigner's  report  is  only  valu 
able  when  it  restricts  itself  to  impressions.  It 
pleases  me  to  have  you  follow  my  lead  in  that 
glowing  way,  but  it  leaves  me  nothing  to  com 
bat.  You  should  give  me  something  to  deny 
and  refute ;  I  would  do  as  much  for  you. 

It  pleases  me  to  have  you  playfully  warn 
the  public  against  taking  one  of  your  books 

*And  you  say:  "A  man  of  average  intelligence,  who  has 
passed  six  months  among  a  people,  cannot  express  opinions 
that  are  worth  jotting  down,  but  he  can  form  impressions  that 
are  worth  repeating.  For  my  part,  I  think  that  foreigners' 
impressions  are  more  interesting  than  native  opinions.  After 
all,  such  impressions  merely  mean  '  how  the  country  struck 
the  foreigner.'  " 


220  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

seriously.""  Because  I  used  to  do  that  cun 
ning  thing  myself  in  earlier  days.  I  did  it  in 
a  prefatory  note  to  a  book  of  mine  called  Tom 

Sawyer. 

NOTICE 

Persons  attempting  to  find  a  motive  in  this  narra 
tive  will  be  prosecuted ;  persons  attempting  to  find  a 
moral  in  it  will  be  banished ;  persons  attempting  to 
find  a  plot  in  it  will  be  shot. 

BY  ORDER  OF  THE  AUTHOR 

PER  G.  G.,  CHIEF  OF  ORDNANCE. 

The  kernel  is  the  same  in  both  prefaces,  you 
see — the  public  must  not  take  us  too  seriously. 
If  we  remove  that  kernel  we  remove  the  life- 
principle,  and  the  preface  is  a  corpse.  Yes,  it 
pleases  me  to  have  you  use  that  idea,  for  it  is 
a  high  compliment.  But  it  leaves  me  nothing 
to  combat ;  and  that  is  damage  to  me. 

Am  I  seeming  to  say  that  your  Reply  is  not 
a  reply  at  all,  M.  Bourget  ?  If  so,  I  must  modi 
fy  that;  it  is  too  sweeping.  For  you  have 
furnished  a  general  answer  to  my  inquiry  as 

*  When  I  published  Jonathan  and  his  Continent,  I  wrote 
in  a  preface  addressed  to  Jonathan  :  "  If  ever  you  should  in 
sist  in  seeing  in  this  little  volume  a  serious  study  of  your  coun 
try  and  of  your  countrymen,  I  warn  you  that  your  world-wide 
fame  for  humor  will  be  exploded." 


A    LITTLE   NOTE   TO    M.  PAUL    BOURGET        221 

to  what  France — through  you — can  teach  us.* 
It  is  a  good  answer.  It  relates  to  manners, 
customs,  and  morals  —  three  things  concern 
ing  which  we  can  never  have  exhaustive  and 
determinate  statistics,  and  so  the  verdicts  de- 

*"  What  could  France  teach  America?"  exclaims  Mark 
Twain.  France  can  teach  America  all  the  higher  pursuits  of 
life,  and  there  is  more  artistic  feeling  and  refinement  in  a 
street  of  French  working-men  than  in  many  avenues  inhabited 
by  American  millionaires.  She  can  teach  her,  not  perhaps 
how  to  work,  but  how  to  rest,  how  to  live,  how  to  be  happy. 
She  can  teach  her  that  the  aim  of  life  is  not  money-making, 
but  that  money-making  is  only  a  means  to  obtain  an  end. 
She  can  teach  her  that  wives  are  not  expensive  toys,  but  use 
ful  partners,  friends,  and  confidants,  who  should  always  keep 
men  under  their  wholesome  influence  by  their  diplomacy, 
their  tact,  their  common-sense,  without  bumptiousness.  These 
qualities,  added  to  the  highest  standard  of  morality  (not  an 
gular  and  morose,  but  cheerful  morality),  are  conceded  to 
Frenchwomen  by  whoever  knows  something  of  French  life 
outside  of  the  Paris  boulevards,  and  Mark  Twain's  ill-natured 
sneer  can  not  even  so  much  as  stain  them. 

I  might  tell  Mark  Twain  that  in  France  a  man  who  was 
seen  tipsy  in  his  club  would  immediately  see  his  name  can 
celled  from  membership.  A  man  who  had  settled  his  fortune 
on  his  wife  to  avoid  meeting  his  creditors  would  be  refused 
admission  into  any  decent  society.  Many  a  Frenchman  has 
blown  his  brains  out  rather  than  declare  himself  a  bankrupt. 
Now  would  Mark  Twain  remark  to  this  :  "  An  American  is 
not  such  a  fool :  when  a  creditor  stands  in  his  way  he  closes 
his  doors,  and  reopens  them  the  following  day.  When  he 
has  been  a  bankrupt  three  times  he  can  retire  from  business?" 


222  HOW   TO   TELL  A   STORY 

livered  upon  them  must  always  lack  conclu- 
siveness  and  be  subject  to  revision ;  but  you 
have  stated  the  truth,  possibly,  as  nearly  as 
any  one  could  do  it,  in  the  circumstances.  But 
why  did  you  choose  a  detail  of  my  question 
which  could  be  answered  only  with  vague 
hearsay  evidence,  and  go  right  by  one  which 
could  have  been  answered  with  deadly  facts? 
— facts  in  everybody's  reach,  facts  which  none 
can  dispute.  I  asked  what  France  could  teach 
us  about  government.  I  laid  myself  pretty 
wide  open,  there ;  and  I  thought  I  was  hand 
somely  generous,  too,  when  I  did  it.  France 
can  teach  us  how  to  levy  village  and  city  taxes 
which  distribute  the  burden  with  a  nearer  ap 
proach,  to  perfect  fairness  than  is  the  case  in 
any  other  land ;  and  she  can  teach  us  the  wis 
est  and  surest  system  of  collecting  them  that 
exists.  She  can  teach  us  how  to  elect  a  Pres 
ident  in  a  sane  way ;  and  also  how  to  do  it 
without  throwing  the  country  into  earthquakes 
and  convulsions  that  cripple  and  embarrass 
business,  stir  up  party  hatred  in  the  hearts  of 
men,  and  make  peaceful  people  wish  the  term 
extended  to  thirty  years.  France  can  teach 
us — but  enough  of  that  part  of  the  question. 
And  what  else  can  France  teach  us?  She  can 
teach  us  all  the  fine  arts  —  and  does.  She 


A   LITTLE   NOTE   TO   M.  PAUL   BOURGET        223 

throws  open  her  hospitable  art  academies,  and 
says  to  us, "  Come  " — and  we  come,  troops  and 
troops  of  our  young  and  gifted ;  and  she  sets 
over  us  the  ablest  masters  in  the  world  and 
bearing  the  greatest  names ;  and  she  teaches 
us  all  that  we  are  capable  of  learning,  and  per 
suades  us  and  encourages  us  with  prizes  and 
honors,  much  as  if  we  were  somehow  children 
of  her  own  ;  and  when  this  noble  education  is 
finished  and  we  are  ready  to  carry  it  home 
and  spread  its  gracious  ministries  abroad  over 
our  nation,  and  we  come  with  homage  and 
gratitude  and  ask  France  for  the  bill — there  is 
nothing  to  pay.  And  in  return  for  this  impe 
rial  generosity,  what  does  America  do  ?  She 
charges  a  duty  on  French  works  of  art ! 

I  wish  I  had  your  end  of  this  dispute;  I 
should  have  something  worth  talking  about. 
If  you  would  only  furnish  me  something  to 
argue,  something  to  refute — but  you  persist 
ently  won't.  You  leave  good  chances  unutil 
ized  and  spend  your  strength  in  proving  and 
establishing  unimportant  things.  For  instance, 
you  have  proven  and  established  these  eight 
facts  here  following — a  good  score  as  to  num 
ber,  but  not  worth  while : 

Mark  Twain  is — 

I.  "  Insulting." 


224  H0W   TO    TELL    A    STORY 

2.  (Sarcastically    speaking)    "This    refined 
humorist." 

3.  Prefers  the  manure-pile  to  the  violets. 

4.  Has  uttered  "  an  ill-natured  sneer." 

5.  Is  "  nasty." 

6.  Needs  a  "  lesson  in  politeness  and  good 
manners." 

7.  Has  published  a  "  nasty  article." 

8.  Has  made  remarks  "  unworthy  of  a  gen 
tleman."* 

These  are  all  true,  but  really  they  are  not 
valuable  ;  no  one  cares  much  for  such  finds. 
In  our  American  magazines  we  recognize  this 
and  suppress  them.  We  avoid  naming  them. 
American  writers  never  allow  themselves  to 

*  "  It  is  more  funny  than  his"  (Mark  Twain's)  "anecdote, 
and  would  have  been  less  insulting." 

A  quoted  remark  of  mine  "  is  a  gross  insult  to  a  nation 
friendly  to  America." 

"  He  has  read  La  Terre,  this  refined  humorist." 

' '  When  Mark  Twain  visits  a  garden  ...  he  goes  in  the 
far-away  corner  where  the  soil  is  prepared." 

"  Mark  Twain's  ill-natured  sneer  cannot  so  much  as  stain 
them  "  (the  Frenchwomen). 

"When  he"  (Mark  Twain)  "takes  his  revenge  he  is  un 
kind,  unfair,  bitter,  nasty." 

"  But  not  even  your  nasty  article  on  my  country,  Mark,"  etc. 

"Mark  might  certainly  have  derived  from  it"(M.  Bour- 
get's  book)  "  a  lesson  in  politeness  and  good  manners." 

A  quoted  remark  of  mine  is  ' '  unworthy  of  a  gentleman. " 


A   LITTLE    NOTE   TO    M.   PAUL    BOURGET        225 

name  them.  It  would  look  as  if  they  were  in 
a  temper,  and  we  hold  that  exhibitions  of 
temper  in  public  are  not  good  form — except 
in  the  very  young  and  inexperienced.  And 
even  if  we  had  the  disposition  to  name  them, 
in  order  to  fill  up  a  gap  when  we  were  short 
of  ideas  and  arguments,  our  magazines  would 
not  allow  us  to  do  it,  because  they  think  that 
such  words  sully  their  pages.  This  present 
magazine  is  particularly  strenuous  about  it. 
Its  note  to  me  announcing  the  forwarding  of 
your  proof-sheets  to  France  closed  thus — for 
your  protection : 

"  It  is  needless  to  ask  you  to  avoid  any  tiling 
tJiat  he  might  consider  as  personal." 

It  was  well  enough,  as  a  measure  of  pre 
caution,  but  really  it  was  not  needed.  You 
can  trust  me  implicitly,  M.  Bourget ;  I  shall 
never  call  you  any  names  in  print  which  I 
should  be  ashamed  to  call  you  with  your  un 
offending  and  dearest  ones  present. 

Indeed,  we  are  reserved,  and  particular  in 
America  to  a  degree  which  you  would  con 
sider  exaggerated.  For  instance,  we  should 
not  write  notes  like  that  one  of  yours  to  a 
lady  for  a  small  fault — or  a  large  one.*  We 

*  When  M.  Paul  Bourget  indulges  in  a  little  chaffing  at 
the  expense  of  the  Americans,  "who  can  always  get  away 
15 


226  HOW   TO    TELL   A    STORY 

should  not  think  it  kind.  No  matter  how 
much  we  might  have  associated  with  kings 
and  nobilities,  we  should  not  think  it  right 
to  crush  her  with  it  and  make  her  ashamed 


with  a  few  years'  trying  to  find  out  who  their  grandfathers 
were,"  he  merely  makes  an  allusion  to  an  American  foible  ; 
but,  forsooth,  what  a  kind  man,  what  a  humorist  Mark  Twain 
is  when  he  retorts  by  calling  France  a  nation  of  bastards  ! 
How  the  Americans  of  culture  and  refinement  will  admire  him 
for  thus  speaking  in  their  name  ! 

Snobbery.  ...  I  could  give  Mark  Twain  an  example  of 
the  American  specimen.  It  is  a  piquant  story.  I  never  pub 
lished  it  because  I  feared  my  readers  might  think  that  I 
was  giving  them  a  typical  illustration  of  American  character 
instead  of  a  rare  exception. 

I  was  once  booked  by  my  manager  to  give  a  causcrie  in 
the  drawing -room  of  a  New  York  millionaire.  I  accepted 
with  reluctance.  I  do  not  like  private  engagements.  At 
five  o'clock  on  the  day  the  causene  was  to  be  given,  the  lady 
sent  to  my  manager  to  say  that  she  would  expect  me  to  arrive 
at  nine  o'clock  and  to  speak  for  about  an  hour.  Then  she 
wrote  a  postscript.  Many  women  are  unfortunate  there. 
Their  minds  are  full  of  after-thoughts,  and  the  most  impor 
tant  part  of  their  letters  is  generally  to  be  found  after  their 
signature.  This  lady's  P.  S.  ran  thus:  "I  suppose  he  will 
not  expect  to  be  entertained  after  the  lecture." 

I  fairly  shouted,  as  Mark  Twain  would  say,  and  then,  in 
dulging  myself  in  a  bit  of  snobbishness,  I  was  back  at  her  as 
quick  as  a  flash — 

"Dear  Madam:  As  a  literary  man  of  some  reputation,  I 
have  many  times  had  the  pleasure  of  being  entertained  by  the 
members  of  the  old  aristocracy  of  France.  I  have  also  many 


A   LITTLE   NOTE   TO    M.  PAUL    BOURGET        22 7 

of  her  lowlier  walk  in  life  ;  for  we  have  a  say 
ing,  "Who  humiliates  my  mother  includes  his 
own." 

Do  I  seriously  imagine  you  to  be  the  au 
thor  of  that  strange  letter,  M.  Bourget?  In 
deed  I  do  not.  I  believe  it  to  have  been 
surreptitiously  inserted  by  your  amanuensis 
when  your  back  was  turned.  I  think  he  did  it 
with  a  good  motive,  expecting  it  to  add  force 
and  piquancy  to  your  article,  but  it  does  not 
reflect  your  nature,  and  I  know  it  will  grieve 
you  when  you  see  it.  I  also  think  he  inter 
larded  many  other  things  which  you  will  dis 
approve  of  when  you  see  them.  I  am  certain 
that  all  the  harsh  names  discharged  at  me 

times  had  the  pleasure  of  being  entertained  by  the  members 
of  the  old  aristocracy  of  England.  If  it  may  interest  you,  I 
can  even  tell  you  that  I  have  several  times  had  the  honor  of 
being  entertained  by  royalty  ;  but  my  ambition  has  never 
been  so  wild  as  to  expect  that  one  day  I  might  be  entertained 
by  the  aristocracy  of  New  York.  No,  I  do  not  expect  to  be 
entertained  by  you,  nor  do  I  want  you  to  expect  me  to  en 
tertain  you  and  your  friends  to-night,  for  I  decline  to  keep 
the  engagement." 

Now,  I  could  fill  a  book  on  America  with  reminiscences  of 
this  sort,  adding  a  few  chapters  on  bosses  and  boodlers,  on 
New  York  chronique  scandaleuse,  on  the  tenement  houses 
of  the  large  cities,  on  the  gambling-hells  of  Denver,  and  the 
dens  of  San  Francisco,  and  what  not !  But  not  even  your 
nasty  article  on  my  country,  Mark,  will  make  me  do  it. 


228  HOW   TO    TELL   A    STORY 

come  from  him,  not  you.  No  doubt  you  could 
have  proved  me  entitled  to  them  with  as  lit 
tle  trouble  as  it  has  cost  him  to  do  it,  but 
it  would  have  been  your  disposition  to  hunt 
game  of  a  higher  quality. 

Why,  I  even  doubt  if  it  is  you  who  furnish 
me  all  that  excellent  information  about  Bal 
zac  and  those  others.*  All  this  in  simple  jus 
tice  to  you — and  to  me  ;  for,  to  gravely  accept 
those  interlardings  as  yours  would  be  to  wrong 
your  head  and  heart,  and  at  the  same  time 

*  "  Now  the  style  of  M.  Bourget  and  many  other  French 
writers  is  apparently  a  closed  letter  to  Mark  Twain  ;  but  let 
us  leave  that  alone.  Has  he  read  Erckmann-Chatrian,  Vic 
tor  Hugo,  Lamartine,  Edmond  About,  Cherbuliez,  Renan? 
Has  he  read  Gustave  Droz's  Monsieur,  Madame,  et  Be'be1,  and 
those  books  which  leave  for  a  long  time  a  perfume  about 
you  ?  Has  he  read  the  novels  of  Alexandre  Dumas,  Eugene 
Sue,  George  Sand,  and  Balzac  ?  Has  he  read  Victor  Hugo's 
Les  Mise'rables  and  Notre  Dame  de  Paris  ?  Has  he  read  or 
heard  the  plays  of  Sandeau,  Augier,  Dumas,  and  Sardou,  the 
works  of  those  Titans  of  modern  literature,  whose  names  will 
be  household  words  all  over  the  world  for  hundreds  of  years 
to  come  ?  He  has  read  La  Terre—ihis  kind-hearted,  refined 
humorist !  When  Mark  Twain  visits  a  garden  does  he  smell 
the  violets,  the  roses,  the  jasmine,  or  the  honeysuckle  ?  No, 
he  goes  in  the  far-away  corner  where  the  soil  is  prepared. 
Hear  what  he  says:  "I  wish  M.  Paul  Bourget  had  read 
more  of  our  novels  before  he  came.  It  is  the  only  way  to 
thoroughly  understand  a  people.  When  I  found  I  was  com 
ing  to  Paris  I  read  La  Terre" 


A    LITTLE   NOTE   TO   M.  PAUL   BOURGET        229 

convict  myself  of  being  equipped  with  a  va 
cancy  where  my  penetration  ought  to  be 
lodged. 

And  now  finally  I  must  uncover  the  secret 
pain,  the  wee  sore  from  which  the  Reply  grew 
— the  anecdote  which  closed  my  recent  article — 
and  consider  how  it  is  that  this  pimple  has 
spread  to  these  cancerous  dimensions.  If  any 
but  you  had  dictated  the  Reply,  M.  Bourget, 
I  would  know  that  that  anecdote  was  twisted 
around  and  its  intention  magnified  some  hun 
dreds  of  times,  in  order  that  it  might  be  used 
as  a  pretext  to  creep  in  the  back  way.  But 
I  accuse  you  of  nothing — nothing  but  error. 
When  you  say  that  I  "  retort  by  calling  France 
a  nation  of  bastards,"  it  is  an  error.  And  not 
a  small  one,  but  a  large  one.  I  made  no  such 
remark,  nor  anything  resembling  it.  More 
over,  the  magazine  would  not  have  allowed 
me  to  use  so  gross  a  word  as  that. 

You  told  an  anecdote.  A  funny  one  —  I 
admit  that.  It  hit  a  foible  of  our  American 
aristocracy,  and  it  stung  me — I  admit  that ; 
it  stung  me  sharply.  It  was  like  this  :  You 
found  some  ancient  portraits  of  French  kings 
in  the  gallery  of  one  of  our  aristocracy,  and 
you  said : 

"He  has  the  Grand  Monarch,  but  where  is 


230  HOW   TO   TELL   A   STORY 

the  portrait  of  his  grandfather  ?"  That  is,  the 
American  aristocrat's  grandfather. 

Now  that  hits  only  a  few  of  us,  I  grant — 
just  the  upper  crust  only — but  it  hits  exceed 
ingly  hard. 

I  wondered  if  there  was  any  way  of  getting 
back  at  you.  In  one  of  your  chapters  I  found 
this  chance : 

"  In  our  high  Parisian  existence,  for  in 
stance,  we  find  applied  to  arts  and  luxury, 
and  to  debauchery,  all  the  powers  and  all  the 
weaknesses  of  the  French  soul." 

You  see?  Your  "  higher  Parisian"  class — 
not  everybody,  not  the  nation,  but  only  the 
top  crust  of  the  nation — applies  to  debauchery 
all  the  powers  of  its  soul. 

I  argued  to  myself  that  that  energy  must 
produce  results.  So  I  built  an  anecdote  out 
of  your  remark.  In  it  I  make  Napoleon  Bona 
parte  say  to  me  —  but  see  for  yourself  the 
anecdote  (ingeniously  clipped  and  curtailed) 
in  paragraph  eleven  of  your  Reply.* 

*  So,  I  repeat,  Mark  Twain  does  not  like  M.  Paul  Bour- 
get's  book.  So  long  as  he  makes  light  fun  of  the  great  French 
writer  he  is  at  home,  he  is  pleasant,  he  is  the  American  humor 
ist  we  know.  When  he  takes  his  revenge  (and  where  is  the 
reason  for  taking  a  revenge  ?)  he  is  unkind,  unfair,  bitter, 
nasty. 


A    LITTLE    NOTE   TO    M.  PAUL    BOURGET        231 

Now  then,  your  anecdote  about  the  grand 
fathers  hurt  me.  Why?  Because  it  had  point. 
It  wouldn't  have  hurt  me  if  it  hadn't  had 
point.  You  wouldn't  have  wasted  space  on  it 
if  it  hadn't  had  point. 

My  anecdote   has   hurt   you.     Why  ?     Be- 

For  example  : 

See  his  answer  to  a  Frenchman  who  jokingly  remarks  to  him  : 

"  I  suppose  life  can  never  get  entirely  dull  to  an  American, 
because  whenever  he  can't  strike  up  any  other  way  to  put  in 
his  time,  he  can  always  get  away  with  a  few  years  trying  to 
find  out  who  his  grandfather  was." 

Hear  the  answer : 

"  I  reckon  a  Frenchman's  got  his  little  standby  for  a  dull 
time,  too  ;  because  when  all  other  interests  fail,  he  can  turn 
in  and  see  if  he  can't  find  out  who  his  father  was  ?" 

The  first  remark  is  a  good-humored  bit  of  chaffing  on 
American  snobbery.  I  may  be  utterly  destitute  of  humor, 
but  I  call  the  second  remark  a  gratuitous  charge  of  immoral 
ity  hurled  at  the  French  women — a  remark  unworthy  of  a  man 
who  has  the  ear  of  the  public,  unworthy  of  a  gentleman,  a  gross 
insult  to  a  nation  friendly  to  America,  a  nation  that  helped 
Mark  Twain's  ancestors  in  their  struggle  for  liberty,  a  nation 
where  to-day  it  is  enough  to  say  that  you  are  American  to  see 
every  door  open  wide  to  you. 

If  Mark  Twain  was  hard  up  in  search  of  a  French  "  chest 
nut,"  I  might  have  told  him  the  following  little  anecdote.  It 
is  more  funny  than  his,  and  would  have  been  less  insulting  : 
Two  little  street  boys  are  abusing  each  other.  "  Ah,  hold 
your  tongue,"  says  one,  "  you  ain't  got  no  father." 

"Ain't  got  no  father  !"  replies  the  other  ;  "  I've  got  more 
fathers  than  you." 


232  HOW   TO    TELL    A    STORY 

cause  it  had  point,  I  suppose.  It  wouldn't 
have  hurt  you  if  it  hadn't  had  point.  I  judged 
from  your  remark  about  the  diligence  and 
industry  of  the  high  Parisian  upper  crust  that 
it  would  have  some  point,  but  really  I  had  no 
idea  what  a  gold-mine  I  had  struck.  I  never 
suspected  that  the  point  was  going  to  stick  into 
the  entire  nation  ;  but  of  course  you  know  your 
nation  better  than  I  do,  and  if  you  think  it  punct 
ures  them  all,  I  have  to  yield  to  your  judgment. 
But  you  are  to  blame,  your  own  self.  Your  re 
mark  misled  me.  I  supposed  the  industry  was 
confined  to  that  little  unnumerous  upper  layer. 

Well,  now  that  the  unfortunate  thing  has 
been  done,  let  us  do  what  we  can  to  undo  it. 
There  must  be  a  way,  M.  Bourget,  and  I  am 
willing  to  do  anything  that  will  help  ;  for  I  am 
as  sorry  as  you  can  be  yourself. 

I  will  tell  you  what  I  think  will  be  the  very 
thing.  We  will  swap  anecdotes.  I  will  take 
your  anecdote  and  you  take  mine.  I  will  say 
to  the  dukes  and  counts  and  princes  of  the 
ancient  nobility  of  France  :  "  Ha,  ha  !  You 
must  have  a  pretty  hard  time  trying  to  find 
out  who  your  grandfathers  were?" 

They  will  merely  smile  indifferently  and 
not  feel  hurt,  because  they  can  trace  their 
lineage  back  through  centuries. 


A    LITTLE    NOTE   TO    M.  PAUL    BOURGET        233 

And  you  will  hurl  mine  at  every  individual 
in  the  American  nation,  saying : 

"  And  you  must  have  a  pretty  hard  time 
trying  to  find  out  who  your  fathers  were." 

They  will  merely  smile  indifferently,  and  not 
feel  hurt,  because  they  haven't  any  difficulty 
in  finding  their  fathers. 

Do  you  get  the  idea?  The  whole  harm  in 
the  anecdotes  is  in  the  point,  you  see  ;  and 
when  we  swap  them  around  that  way,  they 
Jurct'tit  any. 

That  settles  it  perfectly  and  beautifully,  and 
I  am,  Jlffad  I  thought  of  it.  I  am  very  glad 
J,'M.  Bourget ;  for  it  was  just  that  little 
wee  thing  that  caused  the  whole  difficulty  and 
made  you  dictate  the  Reply,  and  your  aman 
uensis  call  me  all  those  hard  names  which  the 
magazines  dislike  so.  And  I  did  it  all  in  fun, 
too,  trying  to  cap  your  funny  anecdote  with 
another  one — on  the  give-and-take  principle, 
you  know — which  is  American.  7  didn't  know 
that  with  the  French  it  was  all  give  and  no 
take,  and  you  didn't  tell  me.  But  now  that  I 
have  made  everything  comfortable  again,  and 
fixod  both  anecdotes  so  they  can  never  have 
any  point  any  more,  I  know  you  will  forgive 
me. 

THE    END 


RET 


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